Peskov says immediate resumption is impossible; EU legislation sets a 2027 phaseout
The United States is backing a quick resumption of Russian natural-gas sales to Europe through pipelines running through Ukraine, according to U.S., European and Ukrainian officials, as part of negotiations aimed at securing an energy ceasefire before the coming winter. The proposal, broached by U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff during trips to Moscow and Kyiv in September, would sell Russian gas to Europe through a U.S. intermediary to circumvent European sanctions. People who attended the discussions said the arrangement could also create a lucrative opportunity for American investors.
The plan runs into legislation and stated policy in Europe. Under current European Union legislation, all purchases of Russian natural gas must be phased out by the end of 2027, and leaders of Europe’s biggest nations have said they have no interest in restoring their dependence on energy supplies from a country they view as their top strategic threat. The current official European position is that the European Union will not resume purchases of Russian gas even after a full peace agreement with Russia, let alone as part of a tenuous energy ceasefire that allows Vladimir Putin to continue the war and provides funding for his military.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that an immediate resumption of Russian gas exports to Europe was impossible because of the “situation on the ground,” according to Russia’s state news agency TASS. Peskov said such exports could become possible in the future if buyers and sellers agree.
The proposal was put on the back burner last month after Ukraine stopped striking Russian refineries following pressure from President Trump. Kyiv paused strikes on Russian refineries for almost two weeks while Russia continued attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and Moscow began shipping diesel to the U.S., and Washington shifted its focus to the possibility of a more substantial peace agreement. Kyiv resumed its air campaign Friday, launching three attacks on three major Russian refineries in the past three days. The renewed fighting has brought new urgency to the pursuit of a comprehensive energy ceasefire ahead of three-way peace negotiations planned between the U.S., Russia and Ukraine for mid-November in Abu Dhabi. Russia so far has rebuffed American attempts to strike such a deal.
U.S. negotiators see a Russian return to the European gas market as leverage, contending that a comeback would give Putin a powerful incentive to agree to an energy ceasefire. They note the Soviet-era pipeline network running to Europe via Ukraine from the Urengoi gas fields in Siberia would also provide Kyiv with badly needed revenue from transit fees. By contrast with the Nord Stream lines, the network running through Ukraine, which has connections to Slovakia and onward to Austria and Germany, could be restarted almost immediately. Limited quantities of gas continued to flow through it until it was shut down in January 2025, well into the full-scale war.
Restarting the Nord Stream lines would take considerable time, even if political and regulatory hurdles could somehow be overcome. Russia and Germany built the first Nord Stream pipeline in 2011 to bypass the networks running via Ukraine. Nord Stream 1 halted deliveries in August 2022, and Nord Stream 2 was never put into operation; both were badly damaged in underwater explosions attributed to Ukraine in September 2022. U.S. officials nevertheless see an eventual reopening of Nord Stream as a potentially important component of a larger deal, one meant not only to end the war in Ukraine but to resolve Russia’s longstanding friction with America’s European allies.
The proposal is a reversal of Trump’s first administration, which repeatedly chastised German Chancellor Angela Merkel for building Nord Stream 2. Trump warned that Nord Stream 2 would make Germany “captive to Russia,” and in late 2019 imposed sanctions on it. Just over two years later, Russia—its military funded by energy-export revenues—invaded Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal’s analysis said the invasion was a bet that Europe wouldn’t react because of its heavy economic dependence on Moscow. The war prompted Europeans to view dependence on Russian natural gas as a strategic vulnerability to a hostile power they no longer trust, and the European Union has passed legislation sharply curtailing Russian gas imports.
A senior U.S. official said Merkel’s mistake was to pursue the pipeline without first working toward a wider security arrangement with Russia that Moscow could feel comfortable with. Another U.S. official said negotiators had discussed various economic proposals throughout the negotiations, and that Europeans have expressed interest in a proposal that would drastically reduce gas prices across the continent. That official said any economic agreements would be part of a comprehensive peace deal.
On the mechanics of payment, White House officials have proposed depositing proceeds from Russia’s gas sales to Europe into an escrow account in a third-party jurisdiction, a proposed safeguard intended to keep the money from financing the war, according to a senior U.S. official. Officials have tried to sell the idea to European leaders as a way to lower energy prices ahead of a winter when Europe’s gas reserves have reached their lowest seasonal level in several years.
European resistance has not given way. EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen, in an interview with a Hungarian newspaper in October that his office confirmed, said the ban on Russian gas imports should be permanent. “I certainly would not trust Russia. Even if there were peace tomorrow, which we all hope for,” he said. In private, a senior Nordic official said the idea of resuming Russian gas purchases goes against everything the Europeans stand for, and a senior official from a large European nation compared it to former British leader Neville Chamberlain sacrificing Czechoslovakia to Hitler in exchange for business deals.
The Trump administration expects European resistance to prove less rigid than officials have stated publicly. Germany’s main opposition party, the Alternative for Germany, has already made the resumption of cheap natural-gas imports from Russia a key part of its campaign ahead of national elections slated for 2028.
Europe’s dependence on Russian gas has already fallen sharply. Today 11% of Europe’s natural gas comes from Russia, down from 45% on the eve of the war, while U.S. liquefied natural gas accounts for 30% of European consumption. Russian gas still reaches Europe either through LNG tankers or through the TurkStream pipelines supplying Hungary and Slovakia.
European officials acknowledge that the fallout from the U.S.-Iran war could erode European resistance: Qatari liquefied natural gas shipments remain bottled up inside the Persian Gulf, a global surge in energy prices has continued even with more oil shipments passing through the Strait of Hormuz, and Europe has spent an additional 100 billion euros, about $112 billion, on energy as a result of the U.S.-Iran war, according to the European Union.
Europe’s underground natural-gas storage is about 75% full, and the continent will enter the coming winter with stocks below the nine-year average, according to the European Union’s energy regulators.
It would be easier for Europe to change its position if Kyiv endorsed the gas sales as part of a ceasefire that would prevent energy blackouts and a possible humanitarian catastrophe in major Ukrainian cities, potentially triggering a new exodus of refugees in coming months, diplomats said. That prospect has become more urgent because Ukraine has run out of air defenses, with the U.S. restricting supplies of Patriot interceptors amid a global shortage caused by the U.S.-Iran war.