Now the Americans are plotting to bring Russian gas back to Europe. Moscow’s attack on Zaporizhzhia

The United States is aiming for a rapid resumption of Russian gas sales to Europe via the pipelines passing through Ukraine, thereby securing an energy truce between Moscow and Kyiv. According to the Wall Street Journal, the idea was put forward to both the Ukrainians and the Russians by two White House envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, during their tour at the end of last September. Moscow would sell its gas through an American intermediary in order to circumvent European sanctions: in this way, American investors would make a profit, as would the Russians, whilst the Ukrainians would retain the revenue from transit fees – which is certainly welcome, but under this scheme would actually come at a very high overall cost.

Yesterday, the Russian army struck a school being used as a shelter in Komyshuvakha, in the Zaporizhzhia region, killing more than twenty people. Inside were people seeking humanitarian aid – civilians in an oblast where, during an attack, there is not even time to take cover. The Trump administration is no longer talking about peace negotiations, but is focusing on an energy truce, which the US president has already announced twice in the past without either the Ukrainians or the Russians being aware of it.

To achieve this, it intends to use business as a lever and exert pressure not only on Ukraine but on the whole of Europe. In recent days, reports have circulated of a request from the Pentagon to certain European leaders to tone down their rhetoric regarding the Russian ‘hybrid’ threat against Europe: do not be hysterical, otherwise our business with Moscow will go down the drain. Meanwhile, the European mechanism for purchasing American weapons to be supplied to the Ukrainians – the PURL – has effectively ground to a halt, meaning that the Europeans have paid for the arms, but the Americans are not honouring the contract. The same can be said of Starshield, the military satellite intelligence package owned by Elon Musk, which is paid for by the Europeans (particularly the Germans) but is being arbitrarily tampered with by the Americans.

Now there is also the issue of gas, which is further fuelling the already heated European debate on support for Ukraine’s defence: by the end of 2027, all European purchases of Russian gas will cease. Today, only 11 per cent of natural gas imported into Europe comes from Russia, whereas before the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, this figure stood at 45 per cent. This shift has forced Europeans to reassess their supply policies, and although pockets of exemptions and reluctance persist, supporting Kyiv while simultaneously financing the Russian war machine is a financial contradiction that is simply unacceptable. In the summer of 2025, when Trump was going through a somewhat exasperated phase with Vladimir Putin, he frequently lectured the Europeans: perhaps they had shown him the figures for European energy purchases, and so he kept repeating that it was necessary to make the war unprofitable for the Russians, and that the Europeans, at the very least, had to stop buying gas and oil from them. Trump was right, but we now know that the aim was not to strengthen support for Europe and Ukraine, but quite the opposite.

The proposal to reopen the European market to Russian resources overturns the strategy adopted so far – and with great difficulty – by European leaders, at a time when prices are rising due to the energy crisis in the Middle East and when political forces hostile to Ukraine are on the rise. It also upends the Trumpian strategy of delegating (to put it mildly) the management of Ukraine’s defence to Europe, creating a new dependency – one which, fortunately, is viewed with suspicion by current European leaders. Yesterday in the New York Times, Katrin Bennhold, the creator and editor of the splendid daily newsletter on world affairs, aptly recalled the German lesson regarding economic relations with Putin: the market seemed to be the lever for peace with Russia, but clearly it was not, even though we deluded ourselves for a long time. Yet today, Russian and American manoeuvres seek to reopen that door, playing with fire, to the detriment of Ukraine and – let us not forget – of all Europeans, even those who believe it is no longer worth supporting Kyiv’s defence.