At the end of 2023, monthly volumes of fossil fuel exports from Russia to Europe fell 16 times in monetary terms – from a maximum of $16 billion at the beginning of 2022 to about $1 billion, News.Az reports citing statistics from analysts at Bruegel .
Experts linked this dynamic to the desire of the European Union (EU) authorities to minimize the dependence of European countries on supplies of Russian energy resources, including oil, gas and coal. However, despite the sharp drop in imports, the Russian Federation currently remains one of the main suppliers of fossil fuels to the EU.
Most of the imports, as analysts specify, last year were natural gas. According to the European Commission (EC), in 2023, Russia provided a total of 15 percent of the total volume of imports of this type of fuel to the EU. A significant share of supplies from Russia to Europe, experts recall, currently comes through pipelines through Ukraine and Turkey.
In 2025, the volume of Russian gas supplies to Europe may fall significantly due to Kyiv’s refusal to extend a long-term agreement with the energy holding Gazprom on the transit of natural fuel from Russia to the EU. According to analysts at the Institute of Energy and Finance (IEF), Russia’s annual losses in this scenario will amount to $3.9-4.8 billion, while Ukraine’s damage will be at the level of $1.2 billion. In this scenario, the EU may lose 13-16 billion cubic meters of pipeline gas from Russia. Experts say that the main victim in this case is Austria, whose dependence on Russian natural fuel imports is estimated at 90 percent.
Against this background, Bloomberg analysts predict that the EU strategy, which provides for a complete rejection of Russian energy resources by 2027, will be difficult to implement. In their opinion, a number of existing long-term agreements between Russia and individual EU countries on energy supplies will prevent a complete severance of bilateral energy ties. It will be extremely difficult to terminate such agreements unilaterally, experts concluded.