Although the European Union has announced plans to phase out Russian gas completely, the latest data show that imports of liquefied natural gas from Russia have reached a record level. Prof. Przemysław Czarnek, PiS’s candidate for prime minister, commented on the matter, accusing Brussels of “the greatest hypocrisy in European politics.” “You cannot talk about fighting Russia with one hand while transferring billions to Moscow with the other,” he wrote on X.
From 1 January 2027, long-term contracts for Russian LNG will be prohibited in the European Union. By autumn 2027, the ban will also cover Russian gas supplied through pipelines.
However, even before the ban takes effect, European countries are buying large quantities of gas from Yamal LNG, a company controlled by Novatek, the Financial Times reported today. Investors in the project include Chinese entities as well as the French energy giant TotalEnergies.
European imports from the Russian gas project in the first half of 2026 were higher than ever before. During the first six months of 2026, the EU purchased 9.89 million tonnes of LNG from Yamal LNG, 18 per cent more than a year earlier, according to the analytics company Kpler. The estimated cost may have amounted to approximately €6 billion. Three countries dominated the imports, France, Belgium and Spain, which purchased a combined total of approximately 9.2 million tonnes.
Czarnek: The greatest hypocrisy in European politics
Prof. Przemysław Czarnek, PiS’s candidate for prime minister, responded to the figures on social media. He described the information as evidence of “the greatest hypocrisy in European politics.”
He pointed out that “Brussels talks about fighting Russian aggression while EU countries are breaking records for imports of Russian LNG.”
“Billions of euros continue to flow to the Kremlin, financing the budget of a state that is waging war against Ukraine. You cannot talk about fighting Russia with one hand while transferring billions to Moscow with the other. Every euro spent on Russian gas increases Russia’s financial capabilities,”
the post reads.
He added that “if the EU genuinely wants the war to end, it should begin by cutting off its own funding for the Russian war machine.”