CREA: EU finances the Kremlin regime with 200 billion euros

The member states of the European Union have financed the Kremlin regime with almost 200 billion euros, from the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine until now, through the lens of fossil fuels purchased directly or indirectly from the Russian Federation, according to the experts of the think tank Energy Research Center and Clean Air (CREA).

Of the total of 200 billion, almost 108 billion euros (53%) represent the import of crude oil, 88.26 billion euros (44%) - import of natural gas and 3.7 billion euros (3%) - import of coal.

According to the analysis carried out by the cited source, the top 5 importers of crude oil, natural gas and coal from the Russian Federation in the period January 1, 2023-August 12, 2024 are as follows: China (128 billion euros), India (75.8 billion euros), Turkey (51.6 billion euros), the European Union (47.8 billion euros) and Brazil (11.9 billion euros).

According to CREA's analysis, between July 29 and August 4, 2024 alone, EU member states paid Russia more than euro400 million, mainly to buy oil and natural gas - which the Kremlin is selling at a higher price following the current volatility of the energy market. This amount pales in comparison to previously observed financial flows - euro5.3 billion in March 2022 compared to euro1.5 billion in March 2024 - but it means that even if the EU has come a long way to reduce its energy dependence on Moscow, he is far from freed from it.

The 200 billion euros paid by EU member states for the purchase in the last two years of fossil fuels from the Russian Federation represents an amount greater than the 185 billion euros allocated as total aid (EU and US) to Ukraine in the period March 2022-August 2024, according to information presented by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

That is why experts consulted by Euractiv claim that the increase in gas prices in Europe, attributed to Ukraine's recent incursion in Kursk, is actually helping to increase the Kremlin's income from the sale of fossil fuels, widening the gap with the total amount of EU aid to Kiev. The cited source said that Russian revenues from gas sales, which account for 44% of the Russian Federation's revenues from energy distribution in the EU, are expected to increase due to an unexpected 13% increase in gas prices last week.

According to energy experts, Russian coal has been almost completely banned in the EU, the same cannot be said for other energy sources. While coal imported from Russia reached a share of 3% of the total amount of fossil fuels imported by the EU, gas imports also decreased by about 75% (from 155 billion cubic meters before the invasion of Ukraine to 27 billion cubic meters in 2023), energy experts note an increase in Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, which has significantly contributed to cushioning the overall decline. This fact was also noticed by the European parliamentarians who demanded in March 2024 the blocking of all imports of raw materials from the Russian Federation, but the situation remained the same, due to some landlocked member states - such as Hungary and Austria (Austria's dependency of Russian gas has risen from 80% to 98% in the past two years, prompting Austria's energy minister to sound the alarm ahead of parliamentary elections this autumn) - which have term contracts long with companies in the Russian Federation, being dependent on Russian oil pipelines and liquefied natural gas (LNG) transports, for which there were no restrictions, until the entry into force, at the beginning of August, of the new European regulation on the gas market.

The only European state that has requested since July to give up Russian LNG is Lithuania, with a general decision to be made at the European level in August, which has not happened so far.