Ukraine War: Study: Gas export in EU Putin gives billions in income

According to a study by the Environmental Protection Organization Greenpeace, Russia still benefits to a considerable extent of energy transactions with companies from Germany and other EU countries. In the first eight months of this year alone, 12.8 billion cubic meters (BCM) Russian liquid gas (LNG) were imported into the EU, according to an investigation published just before an EU summit in Copenhagen.

All year 2021, before the beginning of Russia’s aggression war against Ukraine, were 15.9 billion cubic meters of LNG. Accordingly, only the deliveries of pipeline gas from Russia have decreased significantly.

According to Greenpeace estimates, the Russian company Yamal LNG alone took a total of $ 40 billion (EUR 34 billion) between 2022 and 2024 and paid around $ 9.5 billion in profit tax to the Russian state treasury. The organization as the most important customers in the EU mentions the French oil company Total, the federal German energy company Sefe and the Spanish Naturgy.

Accordingly, the total of $ 2.5 billion contributed to the profit taxes of the Russian state, Sefe $ 1.45 billion and Naturgy $ 1.25 billion. With three -digit million amounts each followed Engie (France), Shell (UK/Netherlands) and the company registered in Cyprus Gunvor.

Billions for the Russian War Fund

Greenpeace criticized the $ 9.5 billion gain tax estimated to buy 271,000 attack drones from the Iranian building type Shahed, 2,686 T-90M fighter tanks or 9.5 million 152 mm artillery floor. The amount of artillery shots corresponds to around three years of the current Russian annual production of three million shots. The drones are about a lot that is about 271 times larger than the one that Russia used against Ukraine in a week in a week.

The authors see that the four most important Russian LNG import countries France, Spain, Belgium, Belgium, Belgium, Belgium, Belgium, Belgium, Belgium and the Netherlands spend more money from the import of Russian LNG when Ukraine provided them with bilateral help in the same period. They therefore imported Russian LNG worth 34.3 billion euros, while they provided 21.2 billion euros in bilateral support for Ukraine.

It is also noted that the French group total energy holds a 20 percent share of Yamal LNG and 19.4 percent of the parent company Novatek. Accordingly, the company benefited significantly from these participations during the energy crisis. Since 2022, total energy has received an estimated $ 5.06 billion of dividends from Yamal LNG and an additional $ 1.74 billion in Dividends from Novatek.

Greenpeace: dependence on the USA is also bad

European energy companies explain their continued business with Yamal LNG in particular with the needs and/or long -term contracts. This also applies to the German company Sefe, which formerly called Gazprom Germania, was a daughter of the Russian state group Gazprom and was nationalized as a result of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the energy crisis in Germany. It is bound to Yamal LNG until 2038.

In their conclusions for the investigation, the Greenpeace experts criticize the still existing dependence on Russian LNG directly fills the war treasury of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin and threaten peace and security in Europe. At the same time, the increased import of US gas ensures that Europe is exposed to the political agenda of US President Donald Trump, who is increasingly becoming an unreliable partner.

The only way out of the “gas trap” is that Europe ends its dependence on fossil gas by converting to an energy system based on local, renewable energy.

So far, however, such a development has not been in sight. The EU Commission recently proposed to completely stop the import of Russian LNG into the EU at the beginning of 2027 at the latest and to give companies collateral in the event of possible claims for damages due to unspecified long-term contracts. At the same time, however, US President Trump was promised that American LNG could fill gaps.