Ukraine halts transit of Russian gas to Europe after a prewar deal expired

Ukraine has halted Russian gas supplies to European customers through a Ukraine's pipeline network, almost three years into Moscow’s all-out invasion of its southern neighbor. A prewar transit deal expired at the end of 2024. Both Ukraine's energy minister and Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom confirmed on Wednesday morning that the gas flows had stopped. Even as Russian troops moved into Ukraine in 2022, Russian natural gas kept flowing through the country’s pipeline network to Europe under a five-year agreement. Before the war, Russia supplied nearly 40% of Europe’s natural gas through pipelines. By 2023, that figure was around 8% as users switched to liquefied natural gas from the U.S. and Norway.