“According to the results of the first ten months of 2025, the volume of Russian gas supplies to Europe fell to a historic low, reaching only 14.7 billion cubic meters”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
By the end of the year, the volume of supplies is unlikely to exceed 16 billion cubic meters – the maximum capacity of the European branch of “Turkish Stream”.
Compared to the same period last year (26.6 billion cubic meters), the once largest sales market collapsed by another 45% due to the termination of the transit contract for the transportation of gas through Ukraine. Through this route, European countries received 12.9 billion cubic meters of Russian gas in the first 10 months of 2024.
Moscow has not exported such small volumes of gas to Europe since the early 1970s, when Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, agreed to the first gas supply contract to Austria. In 1975, 19.3 billion cubic meters were supplied to Europe, and in 1980, after the agreement “gas for pipes” and the conclusion of a large contract with Germany, it already amounted to 54.8 billion cubic meters. Before the full-scale war with Ukraine, pipeline gas exports from Russia to Europe reached 200 billion cubic meters.
Reuters notes that Gazprom has practically nowhere to sell its excess gas. The Power of Siberia gas pipeline to China, which was launched in 2019, compensates for only a fifth of the lost volumes, and the multi-year negotiations on the construction of a new pipeline have not ended in anything. The project of a gas hub in Turkey, which the Kremlin announced in 2022, hoping to open a new European gas exchange, also failed.
The European Union intends to completely abandon Russian gas by January 1, 2028. Europe plans to phase out liquefied natural gas from Russia by January 1, 2027.
