The following is an in-depth analysis from Hungary’s Portfolio on Russian energy flows to the EU, amidst Brussels’ recent decision to turn the tap off completely.
The EU has reached a historic turning point: Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced alongside Donald Trump that Brussels would soon introduce import tariffs to permanently eliminate Russian oil and gas imports. Although the share of Russian energy in the EU’s supply has already fallen to a fraction since the outbreak of the war, many importers continue to use various tricks – for example, by buying oil products “laundered” in third countries – to circumvent the sanctions.
Some countries, notably Hungary and Slovakia, are still heavily dependent on Russian sources. A qualified majority of member states will be enough to introduce tariffs, so no country will be able to veto the decision, which could fundamentally reshape the European energy market and pose a serious challenge to the Hungarian government and MOL.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced last week at a press conference alongside U.S. President Donald Trump at the UN General Assembly that Brussels plans to impose new import tariffs to completely wean Europe off Russian energy. She said that “the last bits” must be removed from Europe’s oil and gas supply.
The European Commission has announced that it will present its new sanctions draft within the next one or two weeks, the adoption of which only requires a qualified majority of the member states, so that no single country can veto it, as we wrote about in detail.
Since the outbreak of the war in 2022, the EU has drastically reduced imports of Russian fossil fuels. Some countries – mainly Hungary and Slovakia – and several companies still buy oil and natural gas from Moscow, but the latter, almost without exception, only indirectly. Russia’s fossil fuel export revenues have fallen by half since the spring of 2022.
The question now is how these actors will adapt to the new situation, when the EU and the U.S. are working together to end the last Russian energy relations.
In the case of natural gas, a total ban was never imposed, but the Kremlin began to weaponize deliveries, while several countries, such as Poland and the Baltic states, voluntarily stopped buying. While in 2021, Russian pipeline gas covered more than 40 percent of the EU’s gas consumption, by 2024, this had fallen to less than 10 percent. By early 2025, Russian gas accounted for 14 percent of the EU’s total gas imports. In the case of oil, the decline is even more spectacular: Today, only 2 percent of the EU’s oil imports comes from Russia.
This remainder mainly arrives in Hungary and Slovakia via the southern branch of the Friendship pipeline. The two countries receive around 200,000 barrels of Ural crude oil per day, which they rely on to set up their refineries.
While seaborne imports have been completely eliminated, Hungary and Slovakia were granted an exemption from the embargo in 2022, citing security of supply risks and the lack of alternative transport routes. Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó made it clear at the time: Hungary is only connected to the international oil network by the pipeline from Russia, and the capacity of the Croatian Adriatic pipeline is insufficient, as the Hungarian cabinet is now citing.
Slovakia used a similar argument and was allowed to export Russian-based fuel to the Czech Republic until June 2025. After that deadline, it partially switched to alternative sources, but it can still import Russian oil for domestic use.
Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic have completely divorced themselves from russian oil, so these countries are often given as examples in the EU in the Hungarian-Slovak dispute.
The picture is similar in the natural gas market, but the situation is more complicated. The Ukrainian transit route was closed at the end of 2024, leaving only the TurkStream pipeline active, which will transport Russian gas through the Black Sea to Turkey and then through Bulgaria to Southeastern Europe.
From there, the gas will arrive in Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria. In 2021, Hungary signed a 15-year contract with Gazprom, which guarantees the supply of 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year until 2036. This made Hungary the only EU member state to increase its Russian gas imports in 2022–2023 after the outbreak of the war. The majority of Hungarian consumption is still covered by Russian gas. Slovakia also buys and transfers the surplus to Austria, so the Austrian market indirectly receives Russian gas again. Bulgaria was previously excluded from the system due to its refusal to pay in rubles, but later regained access to Russian gas through Turkish mediation.
Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) is another grey area. Since it has not been subject to a complete ban, Western European energy companies – mainly France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain – have continued to buy it, typically from the Yamal Peninsula. The EU’s action against them is more difficult because while it is easy for member states to enforce the embargo, it is much more difficult for individual energy companies to do so, as they also use creative accounting techniques. In 2024, the EU was the largest market for Russian LNG, acquiring 50 percent of exports.
The four countries mentioned accounted for 85 percent of imports. In August 2025, France bought €157 million worth of Russian LNG, while the Netherlands and Belgium each bought around €60-65 million. Spain has curbed its purchases under political pressure.
Still, the share of Russian LNG is decreasing: It was 22 percent of the EU’s LNG imports at the beginning of 2021, and by mid-2025, it had decreased to 14 percent. In the case of oil, although there is a complete embargo on sea transport, indirect imports have become a significant factor.
Essentially, it is about India, Turkey and other countries buying Russian crude oil cheaply and then selling it as refined products to the EU. For example, India barely imported Russian oil before the war, but by 2024, it had become one of the largest buyers, and it can be assumed that this was due to the fact that the country exported record quantities to Europe.
According to an analysis by Business Today, India exported fuel products worth $19.2 billion to the EU in the first half of 2024, but this amount fell to $15 billion in the same period in 2025, which corresponds to a decline of about 27 percent.
The decrease is caused by the EU’s 18th sanctions package, which prohibits the import of fuels refined from Russian crude oil in third countries, such as India. In the case of oil, the Netherlands was the main target, followed by France and the United Kingdom. Dutch ports have become distribution hubs from which Indian fuels, which are actually Russian fuels, are distributed throughout Europe.
“Hungary’s share of total Russian oil exports is 2.2 percent, which means that the remaining 97.8 percent is purchased by others, which also highlights the hypocrisy of Western European countries,” said Hungary’s FM Péter Szijjártó in New York on Wednesday local time. Of the proportion mentioned by the politician, China and India accounted for 85.6 percent in August, while Turkey accounted for 5 percent.
However, it is still unclear how much Russian oil is being passed through third countries like India and Morocco, regardless of what EU sanctions are supposedly targeting.
According to Eurostat data, Turkey’s export surplus compared to 2021 was 3.1 million tons, while India’s was 10 million tons last year. Based on this, washed, re-refined Russian oil may indeed have appeared in the EU’s annual oil imports, but it still has a small share in the total 450 million tons of imports.
Based on the latest EU summaries, the amount imported in this way does not even reach 5 percent. If the EU really continues to restrict options in the new rounds of sanctions, this ratio may decrease further. This is how Russian energy income disappears.
The loopholes and circumvention of sanctions, as well as sales to India and China, are no longer helping the Russian economy. According to an August analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), Russia earned €564 million in revenue per day from fossil exports, which represents a 2 percent monthly decrease.
Marine oil revenues fell 12 percent to €170 million per day. Pipeline gas exports, which essentially only cover Hungary and Slovakia, rose 8 percent to €75 million per day, while LNG revenues rose 4 percent to €31 million per day. Coal exports brought in €76 million per day. According to the report, Hungary imported €416 million of Russian energy in August 2025, half of that oil and half gas. Slovakia spent €276 million, mainly on oil. France came in third with €157 million in LNG imports.
The EU’s goal now is to economically force the remaining buyers – be they member states or companies – to give up Russian energy. Von der Leyen’s proposal would include a common EU tariff on the Russian oil that is still flowing in. This would make it more expensive for Hungary and Slovakia to get it, which would encourage the search for alternative sources.
The 19th sanctions package would also require that the import of Russian LNG be prohibited from 2026, a year earlier than previously planned. Hungary is in a particularly difficult situation. Mol’s regional refineries are equipped for Ural-type oil, and although the Croatian Adriatic pipeline offers an alternative, its capacity is limited according to the oil company – although this is strongly denied by its Croatian partner, Janaf. (Portfolio writes about this in detail here.) According to Portfolio’s analysis, separating from Russia would represent an additional cost of up to 10-20 percent.
In 2023, 80 percent of natural gas imports came from Russian sources. Although there has been some diversification – for example, Azerbaijani gas, Croatian LNG, and a Turkish agreement – their volume is negligible compared to the Gazprom contract. It is no coincidence that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán even spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump by phone to dissuade him from his retaliatory stance on importing Russian energy sources, to which his partner seemed receptive.
Europe’s 60-year energy partnership with Russia may now come to an end, at least in the case of Hungarian and Slovak imports, which have been carried out by tricky Western companies and have been exempted from embargoes, and tougher EU (and possibly US) action is coming.
One of the new steps in this could be the 19th sanctions package to be negotiated by the member states in October, which would bring forward the union’s complete separation from Russian energy sources to 2027 and would also impose an embargo on LNG.
As a measure against laundered oil, another 120 ships of the Russian shadow fleet would be banned. The possible tariff increases, floated by Ursula von der Leyen, will be negotiated by the member states as trade restrictions, regardless.
