Russian gas flow to Europe via Ukraine stopped: Who does it hurt?

Russia’s dominance of the EU energy market ends but it will likely cause energy crisis in several EU countries.

The flow of Russian gas to several European countries was halted on New Year’s Day after Ukraine refused to renegotiate a transit deal amid war with Moscow.

Ukraine’s unwillingness to renew the five-year-old transit agreement aims to rob Russia of revenue that Moscow can use to fund its war, but the move will likely create an energy crisis in Eastern Europe, with Transnistria – a breakaway Moldovan region – cutting heat and hot water supplies to households.

“It brings to a final end what was once Russia’s dominance of the EU energy market,” Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, reporting from Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, said. Before the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia supplied some 35 percent of Europe’s pipeline natural gas exports.

With the shutdown of Russia’s oldest gas route to Europe, functional for more than 40 years, Russia’s share has dwindled to less than 10 percent. Another gas pipeline passing through Turkiye still supplies gas to countries such as Hungary.