Dependency on Russian energy is fueling the war
At a moment when transatlantic relations have been defined more by friction than accord, a rare alignment has emerged: the EU's top foreign affairs official, Kaja Kallas, has publicly affirmed what Donald Trump has long argued — that European purchases of Russian energy are, in effect, underwriting the war in Ukraine. The convergence is imperfect and the politics remain tangled, with Hungary, Slovakia, and even France and Spain complicating any clean narrative of Western resolve. What the moment reveals is an old truth: that economic self-interest and moral clarity rarely travel at the same speed, and that the distance between them is measured, in this case, in barrels of oil and the lives they sustain.
- A transatlantic fault line quietly closes as Kallas endorses Trump's long-standing demand that Europe stop financing Russia's war through energy purchases — a concession that would have been politically unthinkable not long ago.
- The EU's 2028 deadline to phase out Russian imports masks a fractured reality: Hungary and Slovakia continue buying Russian crude while France, Spain, and the Netherlands have quietly increased Russian LNG purchases by 30 percent.
- Slovakia's foreign minister fires back, calling out Western European hypocrisy and insisting the moral picture is 'more colourful than black and white,' exposing the internal contradictions that undermine any unified European stance.
- Trump has drawn a hard line — major sanctions on Russia will only move forward if every NATO member simultaneously halts Russian energy imports, a condition that transforms energy policy into a collective-action problem with no easy solution.
- The threat of coordinated sanctions carries a dangerous undertow: cutting off Russian crude could spike global oil prices, weakening the very Western economies whose public support is essential to sustaining pressure on Moscow.
When Kaja Kallas sat down with Sky News, she did something quietly remarkable — she agreed with Donald Trump. The EU's top foreign affairs official, a former Estonian prime minister who has spent her career navigating the shadow of Russian power, acknowledged that Trump was right: European nations buying Russian oil and gas were, in her framing, funding the war in Ukraine. It was an unlikely convergence between two actors who have clashed on nearly everything else.
The EU had already proposed legislation to end Russian energy imports by January 2028, but the reality on the ground was uneven. Most European states had moved away from Russian crude and fuel following the 2022 invasion, yet Hungary and Slovakia remained holdouts, continuing to import Russian crude despite being EU and NATO members. Kallas expressed regret but stopped short of calling for sanctions against them, pointing instead to the alternatives their neighbors had offered.
The picture grew more complicated when Slovakia's foreign minister, Juraj Blanar, pushed back. He noted that France, Spain, and the Netherlands had actually increased their Russian LNG purchases by 30 percent over the past year — a detail that reframed the criticism of his country as selective and inconsistent. 'The picture is a little bit more colourful than black and white,' he said.
Trump, meanwhile, had made his conditions explicit at the UN General Assembly: the United States would consider major sanctions on Russia, but only if all NATO members agreed to stop buying Russian energy simultaneously. The logic was collective or nothing. Analysts warned, however, that aggressive curbs on Russian crude could drive global oil prices sharply higher, creating economic strain that might erode public support for the entire effort. Turkey, a NATO member, had become the third-largest buyer of Russian oil since 2023, after China and India — a reminder that the global energy market was moving in no single direction. Whether diplomacy or the threat of sanctions would ultimately shift the holdouts remained an open question.
Kaja Kallas, the European Commission's vice president and the EU's top foreign affairs official, sat down with Sky News and did something that might have seemed unlikely months ago: she agreed with Donald Trump. The American president had been pushing European nations to stop buying Russian oil and gas, and Kallas, a former prime minister of Estonia, acknowledged he was right to do so.
The irony was sharp. Trump and the EU have spent years at odds over trade, defense spending, and nearly everything else. Yet on this particular point—that European dependency on Russian energy was a problem—they found themselves on the same side. Kallas framed it in terms of the war in Ukraine. Buying Russian oil and gas, she said, was essentially funding the conflict. The EU had already proposed legislation to phase out Russian imports entirely by January 1, 2028, but progress had been uneven and incomplete.
The reality on the ground told a complicated story. Most European countries had moved away from Russian crude oil in 2022 and Russian fuel in 2023, responding to Putin's invasion of Ukraine with economic pressure. But two holdouts remained: Hungary and Slovakia, both EU and NATO members, continued to import Russian crude. Kallas expressed regret about this, noting that alternatives existed. Neighboring countries had offered to supply energy instead, she said, so there was no excuse for the continued reliance.
But the situation was messier than a simple yes-or-no question about Russian energy. On Wednesday, Slovakia's foreign minister, Juraj Blanar, pushed back against the criticism his country was receiving. He acknowledged the pressure but pointed out what he saw as hypocrisy among Western European states. France, Spain, and the Netherlands, he noted, had actually increased their purchases of Russian liquefied natural gas by 30 percent over the past year. "The picture is a little bit more colourful than black and white," he said, suggesting that singling out Slovakia and Hungary ignored a broader pattern.
Trump had made his position explicit. He said the United States was prepared to impose major sanctions on Russia, but only if all NATO countries agreed to stop buying Russian oil and implement the same measures. At the UN General Assembly, he suggested that without such coordination, he was ready to deploy powerful tariffs that would, in his view, quickly end the bloodshed. But he made clear that European nations would have to join in adopting identical measures for any of it to work.
The stakes were real. Energy revenues remain the Kremlin's primary source of cash to finance its war effort. Cutting off those revenues through sanctions has been a central strategy of Western pressure on Russia. Yet officials and analysts warned of a serious risk: aggressive curbs on Russian crude could drive up global oil prices, potentially straining Western economies and eroding public support for the measures. It was a calculation that had to be weighed carefully.
Meanwhile, Turkey, a NATO member, had become the third-largest buyer of Russian oil since 2023, after China and India. The global energy market was not moving in a single direction. Kallas did not advocate for sanctions against Hungary or Slovakia, instead calling on them to build on the alternatives their neighbors were offering. The question remained whether that diplomatic approach would be enough to shift the holdouts, or whether Trump's threat of broader sanctions would prove more persuasive.
Citações Notáveis
Of course he has a point. We have been saying this for quite some time, that the dependency on Russian oil and gas is actually also fuelling the war.— Kaja Kallas, EU Commission vice president
The picture is a little bit more colourful than black and white— Juraj Blanar, Slovakia's foreign minister, on Western European hypocrisy in energy purchases
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does Trump's criticism seem to carry weight here, when the EU has been saying the same thing for years?
Because he's tying it to something concrete—American sanctions leverage. When Trump says he'll impose tariffs if Europe doesn't comply, that's not abstract policy talk. It's a threat with teeth, and it forces the conversation out of Brussels bureaucracy and into real economic consequences.
But Kallas seems to be saying Hungary and Slovakia should be coaxed, not forced. Why not just sanction them?
Because they're NATO members. You can't expel them or isolate them without fracturing the alliance itself. The EU needs them more than it needs to prove a point. So the strategy becomes persuasion through alternatives—if you can offer them cheaper or more reliable energy from neighbors, the rational choice becomes obvious.
What about Slovakia's point about hypocrisy? Is that a fair criticism?
It's fair enough to complicate the narrative. If France and Spain are quietly buying more Russian LNG while lecturing Slovakia about Russian crude, then yes, there's a credibility problem. It suggests the real issue isn't principle—it's which countries have leverage and which don't.
So what actually changes this? Does Trump's threat work?
That depends on whether the threat is real and whether Europe can actually coordinate. If Trump follows through on tariffs, the pain spreads across all of Europe, not just Hungary and Slovakia. That might finally create the pressure needed to move them. But if it's just rhetoric, nothing changes.
And the oil price risk—is that a real brake on all of this?
Absolutely. You can't ask voters to support sanctions that make their heating bills spike in winter. That's where the political calculation gets brutal. It's why Turkey keeps buying Russian oil despite being in NATO. The economic pain of compliance is real, even if the moral case is clear.