Russia's figure

Russia's deputy prime minister for energy, Alexander Novak, said on Monday, 12 October 2026, in a televised statement that Russia has sold energy worth $320.7 billion to European countries since 2022, despite Western sanctions. He said European countries bought $21.3 billion of Russian oil and gas in the first nine months of 2026 alone. Novak also said Russian oil exports could return to pre-war levels by the end of the year. He described the deliveries as continuing in some sectors covered by sanctions exemptions. Moscow's total does not include Russian hydrocarbons that reach Europe indirectly after processing in third countries such as India and Turkey, whose purchases of Russian crude, like those of China, have risen sharply since 2022.

Brussels' lower count

The European Commission put EU spending on Russian energy at about €197 billion, or $209 billion through July 2026, counting from the invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022. Commission spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen said that without the EU's policy of giving up Russian oil and gas, the bloc would have spent €475 billion, or €278 billion more, on Russian fossil fuels. She stressed the direction of travel:

What matters is what happens in the long term, with a very clear downward trend.

The two totals cover different periods and scopes, and the Commission's figure stops at July 2026, so the two sides are not measuring the same thing.

Gas dependence

Russian gas accounted for 45% of EU gas imports in 2021 and 12% in 2025. The EU plans to give up Russian gas definitively in autumn 2027, yet it continues to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia. The German NGO Urgewald said the EU imported about €7.88 billion of LNG from Russia's Yamal terminal in the first nine months of 2026, across 167 cargoes between January and September. Hungary and Slovakia hold exemptions that allow them to buy Russian oil delivered by pipeline, and France is among the countries still buying Russian LNG.

Aid comparison

Swedish foreign minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, speaking to her EU counterparts in Luxembourg on 12 October, said the total of Russian imports into the EU since 2022, not only hydrocarbons, is higher than the aid the EU has given Ukraine. Sources give different figures for that aid: one report puts it at €228.7 billion since 2022, while another gives €218.7 billion (about $244 billion). Stenergard argued that using frozen Russian assets held in the EU would almost double the total support given to Ukraine, and said that would be a real change that Ukraine needs.

Washington's response

US President Donald Trump announced on Friday, 9 October a deal with Vladimir Putin under which Russia would supply diesel to world markets to calm rising prices. On Monday, 12 October, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the EU had paid Russia $250 billion for energy, a figure well below Moscow's $320.7 billion. US finance minister Scott Bessent had criticised what he called the hypocrisy of Europeans on Sunday, 11 October, saying they keep financing Vladimir Putin while objecting to the diesel deal. Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's adviser on international economic cooperation, also criticised EU officials on X on 12 October.