Russian-Ukraine crisis has cast a dark shadow on the energy needs of the member states of the European Union (EU). Comment. (2022, 15 Marks)
In 2021 Russia supplied about 45% of EU gas imports and over a quarter of its oil. The invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 turned that dependence into the Union’s sharpest strategic vulnerability. It exemplifies what Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye (Power and Interdependence, 1977) called vulnerability interdependence, and what Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman (2019) called weaponised interdependence. The shadow was real, but it fell unevenly, and it has shifted rather than lifted.
Why the shadow fell
- Asymmetric exposure. Germany had built its industrial model on cheap pipeline gas and Nord Stream, while Spain and France were far less exposed. Every sanctions quarrel was about who bears the cost.
- A known risk ignored. The Russia–Ukraine gas cut-offs of 2006 and 2009 had already interrupted supply, yet energy policy stayed national and gas was bought bilaterally.
- The shock. Pipeline flows were throttled and Nord Stream was sabotaged in September 2022. Prices hit records, industry curtailed output, and unequal state subsidies strained the single market.
The regional response
The crisis produced integration under pressure, as Jean Monnet foresaw when he wrote that Europe would be forged in crises:
- REPowerEU (May 2022) diversified suppliers, sped up renewables and cut demand. Storage targets, joint gas purchasing and a market correction mechanism pooled powers that had stayed national.
- Russia’s share of EU gas imports fell to about 12% in 2025 (Commission data). Ukrainian transit ended on 1 January 2025; in 2025 wind and solar generated more EU electricity than fossil fuels.
- On 26 January 2026 the Council adopted a binding ban: Russian LNG ends by late 2026 and pipeline gas by 30 September 2027. Hungary and Slovakia voted against.
Where the shadow persists
- Dependence displaced. The United States now supplies over half of EU LNG, and that partner’s trade policy has turned coercive.
- New exposure. After the US–Israeli war on Iran began on 28 February 2026, Iranian restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz disrupted Gulf LNG, about a fifth of world supply. Prices rose again: diversification is not insulation.
- Competitiveness cost. European gas still costs several times the American price, the core of the Draghi report’s (2024) warning about deindustrialisation.
- Contested solidarity. Hungarian and Slovak resistance shows that energy remains, in Stanley Hoffmann’s terms, high politics that governments guard.
- Spill-over to India. The EU’s 18th sanctions package (July 2025) listed Nayara Energy’s Vadinar refinery and, from 21 January 2026, bars fuels refined from Russian crude in third countries. S. Jaishankar had answered European criticism in 2022 by noting that India’s monthly Russian purchases were smaller than Europe’s in an afternoon. New Delhi calls such measures unilateral and invokes strategic autonomy.
Conclusion
The statement holds for 2022–23, when Moscow had real leverage over Europe’s energy. Since then the Union has turned the shock into deeper energy integration and legislated an end to a fifty-year dependence. Its weakness has moved from one supplier to high prices and exposure to world markets. The shadow has thinned, but it now falls from several directions.