February 1, 2025 - 6:30pm

According to a Financial Times report this week, the European Union is considering support for the restarting of Russian gas flows to the continent. This would come as part of a potential deal between the West and Russia to end Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

But such a decision would be extremely misguided. Indeed, not since the German government shut down the country’s three remaining nuclear power plants in April 2023, at the height of the energy crisis which resulted from the very same war, has such a daft policy been proposed.

For one thing, renewing gas purchases in significant volumes would once again leave Europe vulnerable to the Kremlin’s energy terrorism. Even before the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines that Russia, Germany, and a consortium of profit-seeking but now deeply-out-of-pocket energy firms backed despite the vociferous opposition of several EU leaders, Putin toggled the gas that they delivered on and off in the first half of 2022 to wreak havoc on European energy markets.

This was a clear attempt by Moscow to weaponise inflation and weaken European unity in the wake of the 2022 invasion. It is often underappreciated that Putin launched his attack just as inflationary pressures from the bullwhip effect that followed Covid-19 lockdowns and trade disruption were beginning to sting.

Another reason why the new EU proposal will be unworkable is that Europe will at best take a secondary — more likely tertiary — role in any eventual negotiations around a ceasefire in Ukraine. Russian officials have in fact insisted that such negotiations be held with Washington directly, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also emphasised that the United States must be Kyiv’s primary partner in overseeing a settlement.

During his first term, US President Donald Trump denigrated Germany’s attempts to build the second Nord Stream network and backed threats of sanctions over its construction. He promoted US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports as a “freedom gas” alternative, an apt description now even though it was ridiculed at the time.

America’s LNG exports played a key role in alleviating Europe’s Putin-induced energy crisis two years ago, and Trump is now insisting that the EU buys more. Planning to once again expand European purchases of Russian gas would fly directly in the face of that effort. On top of this, Washington can simply refuse to grant sanctions waivers for payments — or further increase its sanctions on Russia, as Trump has recently threatened.

Importantly, it is not only US permission that must be sought to restart Russian gas flows but also Ukrainian approval. And while Zelensky has recently stated that he is open to the use of Azerbaijani gas, to be supplied through Ukraine — an effort that failed last year due to sanctions complications — Kyiv refuses to renew transshipment of Russian gas over its own territory. Even if there were US and EU unity around renewal, such supplies would hardly be secure. Yet Brussels seems incapable of learning from its mistakes, let alone acknowledging them. Plus ça change.


Maximilian Hess is a Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.