Russian gas exports running through Ukraine have stopped in 2025.
This is said to be the end of Moscow’s supremacy over Europe’s energy supply, which originated from Soviet times.
Gas has been flowing throughout the war, but it stopped early in the morning, after Ukraine — expectedly — refused to renew a transit agreement.
Sources say that prices won’t rise for European Union consumers. European buyers trickled out, and now the last of them have made alternative plans. The EU has been preparing for this moment for years by buying piped gas from Norway and LNG from Qatar and the USA. But Slovakia will reciprocal measures against Ukraine such as halting backup electricity supplies, and has criticized the huge financial impact this will have.
Contested region Transnistria cut off heading and hot water this morning with the pull-out, and it’s unknown when these will be back.
Only Hungary get Russian gas via TurkStream, with its two pipelines under the Black Sea.
The European Commission has said that the European gas infrastructure has “been reinforced with significant new LNG (liquefied natural gas) import capacities since 2022”, which are more expensive — something that does not bode well for the EU, economically speaking.
Ukraine now faces the loss of circa $800 million a year in transit fees from Russia — while Gazprom will lose close to $5 billion in gas sales.
At the peak of Russia’s gas glory, it controlled 35% of the market, but the last three years of war led to what is a historical catastrophe for Russia.
Moldova is currently in a state of emergency over the gas problem.
