France, Hungary and Spain became the main buyers of Russian gas in the European Union between January and August 2024. In total, Russia supplied the EU with €9bn worth of gas during this period, RIA Novosti news agency reported citing Eurostat calculations.
In the first 8 months of 2024, Russia supplied the EU countries with gas worth €9 billion, with pipeline gas again becoming the main export. It accounted for €4.6 billion, while LNG accounted for €4.4 billion.
The key buyer of Russian fuel was France, which increased its imports by 30 per cent to €1.9 billion. Hungary cut purchases by almost a third and bought €1.6 billion worth of fuel from Russia.
Spain increased its gas imports from Russia to 1.4 billion euros. Other major buyers include Italy (1.3 billion euros), Greece (919 million), Slovakia (800 million) and Belgium (709 million).
At the same time, Lithuania (plus 41%) and Finland (plus 36%) increased their imports the most, although they purchased small volumes – for 1.8 and 44.3 million dollars respectively.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin called Western ideas of a new world order hypocrisy. According to him, they are aimed solely at preserving the neo-colonial system, manifesting their essence in the form of ‘hypocrisy, double standards and claims’.