Report calls out EU ‘complicity’ in funding Kremlin war machine as imports of Russian LNG rise • Novaya Gazeta Europe • RIMA

Report calls out EU ‘complicity’ in funding Kremlin war machine as imports of Russian LNG rise

Two floating storage regasification units used to convert LNG into gas in the Dutch port of Eemshaven, 8 September 2022. Photo: EPA / Siese Veenstra

Despite pledging to ban all imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) by 2027, the European Union actually increased shipments in 2025, earning the Kremlin an estimated €7.2 billion to fund its war in Ukraine, according to a report published by German NGO Urgewald on Thursday.

Though the EU cut the import of Russian pipeline gas supplies following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the proportion of Russian LNG from the Yamal project in Siberia bought by the EU rose from 75.4% in 2024 to 76.1% in 2025.

The report also said that the EU’s increasing reliance on Russian LNG showed no sign of slowing down in 2026 either, noting that the current trajectory suggested that the EU would “continue to funnel billions of euros to Moscow for at least another year.”

In 2025, Yamal LNG accounted for 14.3% of the EU’s total global LNG imports, or the equivalent of approximately one in seven ships arriving at European ports, Urgewald said, adding that France alone was responsible for some 41.7% of EU imports of Russian LNG.

"While Brussels celebrates the latest agreement to phase out Russian gas, our ports continue serving as the logistics lung for Russia’s largest LNG terminal, Yamal. In the current geopolitical situation, we cannot afford another year of complicity,” Sebastian Rötters, an energy and sanctions campaigner at Urgewald said.

“We are not just customers; we are the essential infrastructure keeping this flagship project alive. Every cargo that offloads at an EU terminal is a direct deposit into a war chest that fuels the slaughter in Ukraine. We must stop providing the oxygen for Russia’s energy profits and shut the Yamal loophole now,” Rötters added.

In December, the European Union reached a provisional deal to ban all imports of Russian gas by autumn 2027 in an effort to end the bloc’s dependency on Russian energy and to cut off a major source of Kremlin revenue. The ban on Russian LNG imports is set to come into force on 1 January 2027, while the full ban on Russian pipeline gas imports will start on 30 September 2027.