Last year, EU countries bought Russian oil and gas for almost 22 billion euros, higher than the financial support to Ukraine of nearly 19 billion euros.
It's grotesque, it's a huge hypocrisy that EU countries and companies are showing, says Petras Katinas, energy analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea) to Ekot.
No countries are buying coal from Russia anymore, but instead gas and oil, either directly from Russia or indirectly through countries like Turkey, reports Ekot. It's only the Nordic and Baltic countries that have phased out Russian energy completely.
The rest of Europe is buying, one way or another.
Globally, China, India, and Turkey are the largest buyers of Russian energy. These countries account for three-quarters of Russia's revenue in the area, according to a report published by Crea earlier this year.
Next week, the EU Commission is expected to come up with proposals for new measures to phase out Russian energy, including a proposal for a ban on signing new contracts with Russian suppliers. Katinas thinks this is a good measure that should have been introduced earlier.
On the other hand, it's better now than never.
