Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union has reduced gas supplies from Russia by 80%. This was announced on January 13 by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at a press conference in Sweden with the Prime Minister of the country, Ulf Kristersson.
The video of the conference was published on YouTube by the EC press service.
“Of course, before the war, we were too dependent on Russian fossil fuels. Russia took advantage of this dependence and turned energy into a weapon,” she said.
According to von der Leyen, Russia tried to “blackmail Europe”, but failed “thanks to the unity of the EU”. She noted that the union was able to compensate for the reduction in the supply of Russian gas without any power outages by turning to “reliable suppliers”.
“This hard work has paid off. Gas prices are lower today than they were before the Russian invasion,” von der Leyen added.
It should be noted that EU gas storage facilities are now 83.5% full.
