Claim: The EU Has Significantly Reduced Its Reliance on Russian Energy Since 2022 — Verdict: True

The claim is that since 2022 the EU has significantly reduced its reliance on Russian energy. The verdict is true, and the evidence supporting it is extensive, consistent, and drawn from multiple independent primary sources.

The strongest evidence comes from the International Energy Agency, which documented that EU pipeline gas imports from Russia fell from approximately 150 billion cubic metres in 2021 to roughly 25 bcm in 2023 — a drop of more than 80% in two years. Eurostat and European Commission energy tracking data confirm the same trajectory: Russia's share of EU natural gas imports fell from approximately 45% in 2021 to around 15% by the end of 2023. The Bruegel Think Tank's European natural gas imports tracker sharpens that picture further, showing Russian pipeline gas fell from roughly 40% of total EU gas supply in early 2022 to under 8% by mid-2023, with the gap filled primarily by liquefied natural gas from the United States, Norway, and Qatar.

The reduction was not limited to gas. According to the European Commission's EU oil imports report, Russian crude oil's share of EU imports collapsed from approximately 27% in early 2022 to under 5% by late 2023, driven by the EU's December 2022 embargo on Russian seaborne crude and the February 2023 embargo on Russian refined petroleum products. Russian coal was banned outright in August 2022. The Council of the EU confirms these were legally binding measures, adopted across 11 successive sanctions packages between March 2022 and 2023.

The strongest version of a counterargument would note that the EU did not eliminate Russian energy dependency entirely. That is correct and worth acknowledging. Some Russian LNG continued to flow to EU member states — LNG was not covered by the pipeline gas restrictions — and pipeline transit through Ukraine continued until the transit agreement expired in January 2025. So the honest characterisation is dramatic reduction, not full elimination. The claim as stated, however, says "significantly reduced," and on that specific point the evidence is unambiguous.

The policy architecture behind the reduction is also well-documented. The European Commission's REPowerEU plan, launched in May 2022, explicitly targeted ending EU dependence on Russian fossil fuels before 2030 and triggered coordinated diversification, demand reduction, and accelerated renewables deployment. Eurostat data shows EU renewable electricity generation increased by approximately 10% between 2021 and 2023, reducing overall fossil fuel demand and compounding the effect of the import shift.

The manipulation pattern to watch for here runs in the opposite direction from most misinformation: rather than exaggerating a problem, some actors — particularly those seeking to minimise the cost of sanctions or argue the EU remains dependent on Russia — cherry-pick residual LNG flows or specific member-state exceptions to imply the overall reduction is illusory. It is not. Residual flows are real but marginal against an 80%-plus collapse in pipeline gas and a near-elimination of Russian crude. When you see a partial statistic used to contradict an aggregate trend, always ask for the denominator and the full timeline.