Four years after the invasion of Ukraine, Europe continues to fund the war it supposedly condemns. Data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air reveals an uncomfortable reality: since February 2022, the EU has paid €213 billion to Russia for fossil fuels. In 2024, imports of Russian energy reached €21.9 billion, exceeding the €18.7 billion that the EU sent as financial aid to Ukraine. The irony is so thick you could bottle it.
France, the Netherlands and Belgium increased their purchases by 40%, 72% and 3% respectively in just the first eight months of 2025. Portugal, in a display of enthusiasm that would make even the most fanatical bargain hunters jealous, nearly tripled its imports with a 167% jump. All these countries officially support Ukraine. All sign joint condemnation statements. All continue to pay Moscow.
The contract game
European energy companies invoke legal obligations. Long-term contracts with Russia, extending into the 2030s and 2040s, contain “take-or-pay” clauses. TotalEnergies, Shell, Naturgy and Germany’s SEFE state they cannot stop supplies without official EU sanctions. The argument sounds reasonable until one realizes that these same companies signed these contracts knowing very well with whom they were dealing.
The German government explains that unilateral termination would allow Russia to collect the money and sell the gas elsewhere, doubling its profits. The argument has a perverse logic: better we pay Moscow than someone else does. Europe, it seems, prefers to control its hypocrisy.
While companies hide behind contracts, Moscow found another, even more lucrative loophole: the sea.
The fleet that doesn’t exist
Russia has built a “shadow fleet” of 558 tankers with unclear ownership, insurance from companies no one has ever heard of, and flags that change more frequently than analysts’ forecasts. This fleet handled 61% of Russian oil exports in 2024, worth €83 billion. These ships bypass the price cap, ignore sanctions and continue to operate with the blessing of inertia.
U.S. sanctions, according to Brookings Institution analysis, reduce ship activity by 80%. European and British sanctions? Almost nothing. The reason is simple: fear of U.S. secondary sanctions is real. Fear of Europe? Not so much.
China, India and the art of circumvention
Russia has found new friends. China, India and Türkiye now absorb 74% of Russian revenues from fossil fuels. India increased its imports sevenfold in 2024, refines Russian oil and sells it to G7 countries as “Indian product.” European countries buy willingly, creating tax revenues for Moscow through a process that could be characterized as “oil laundering.”
Banks in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong facilitate transactions that support the war economy. The EU’s 19th sanctions package, announced in October 2025, imposes transaction bans on eight banks and oil traders. The problem? For every bank that closes, two new ones open.
The end of American leadership—or its return?
Until late October 2025, the Trump administration had refrained from imposing any new sanctions on Moscow, claiming that such measures would not force Putin to negotiate. That changed abruptly when Washington announced a new sanctions package targeting Rosneft and Lukoil—Russia’s two largest oil companies—in coordination with the EU and the UK.
Trump called the sanctions “tremendous” and said he hoped they could be lifted if Russia agreed to a ceasefire. It was a striking reversal from his earlier position that the U.S. would not act until Europe fully stopped buying Russian energy.
For the first time in months, Washington and Brussels appeared aligned, sending what EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described as “a clear signal from both sides of the Atlantic.”
Still, questions remain about enforcement. If Europe continues to import Russian LNG until 2027, the Kremlin will keep collecting billions. The West may have rediscovered unit—butits timing comes after nearly four years of strategic hesitation.
The unity that never existed
Hungary and Slovakia refuse to abandon Russian gas. Germany wants moral leadership but not at the expense of its industry. France imports Russian LNG and sends it to Germany via Belgium. Europe resembles a family that disagrees about everything except who will pay the bill: no one.
The rift between West and East, between values and dependency, is exactly what Moscow calculated. Russia doesn’t need to win on the battlefield. It’s enough to exhaust Europe politically, fragment it economically and expose its hypocrisy. And it’s succeeding.
It’s not just a failure of policy—it’s a failure of conviction.
The price of inertia
The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air calculates that stricter sanctions could reduce Russian revenues by €51 billion annually. But this requires political will, coordination and the ability for Europe to confront its own contradictions. So far, none of these conditions are met.
Every tanker that docks at a French or Spanish port, every contract that renews, every euro that flows to Moscow reminds us that Europe has not yet chosen between principles and dependency. The continent that lectures the world about values continues to write checks to the Kremlin. Brussels condemns Moscow’s aggression while European companies sign long-term deals for Russian energy. Member states pledge solidarity with Ukraine while their ports welcome Russian LNG carriers.
The contradiction is not accidental. It reflects deeper structural problems: energy infrastructure built around Russian supplies, corporate contracts worth billions, and political systems that prioritize short-term economic stability over long-term strategic coherence. Europe built its prosperity on cheap Russian gas and now discovers that dependency has a price. That price is measured not just in euros but in credibility, unity and strategic autonomy.
As long as Europe continues to fund both sides of the war, the answer is obvious: dependency wins. Moscow doesn’t need military victory when economic reality delivers the same result. Every billion euros that flows east undermines every sanction, every statement, every claim to moral leadership. The war in Ukraine is fought with weapons, but it’s funded through pipelines and tanker routes that Europe refuses to close.
Europe claims to defend freedom while paying for its enemy’s war. The receipts tell the real story.