U.S. Pushes to Restore Russian Gas Sales to Europe Via Ukraine

The idea is intended to unlock an energy ceasefire between Moscow and Kyiv but it faces resistance in European capitals/ By Yaroslav Trofimov, Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson/ The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 1, 2026 9:00/ Quick Summary/ -- The U.S. is backing a quick resumption of Russian natural-gas sales to Europe via pipelines running through Ukraine to secure an energy ceasefire./ -- U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff broached the idea, which would use a U.S. intermediary to circumvent European sanctions./ -- The proposal faces resistance from European leaders who have legislated to phase out all Russian natural-gas purchases by the end of 2027./ This summary was generated with AI and reviewed by an editor. Read more about how we use artificial intelligence in our journalism./ Kirill Dmitriev, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff stand together at the Kremlin. U.S. envoys Jared Kushner, center, and Steve Witkoff, right, spoke with Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Moscow in September. Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik/Reuters/ The U.S. is backing a quick resumption of Russian natural-gas sales to Europe via pipelines running through Ukraine to secure an energy ceasefire./ View more/ The U.S. is backing a quick resumption of Russian natural-gas sales to Europe via pipelines running through Moscow’s wartime enemy—Ukraine—as part of negotiations aimed at securing an energy ceasefire ahead of the coming winter, according to U.S., European and Ukrainian officials./ The idea, broached by U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff during trips to Moscow and Kyiv in September, would involve selling Russian gas via a U.S. intermediary to circumvent European sanctions—and could create a lucrative opportunity for American investors, people who attended the discussions said/ Under current European Union legislation, all purchases of Russian natural gas must be phased out by the end of 2027. Leaders of Europe’s biggest nations have said that they have no interest in restoring their dependence on energy supplies from a country they view as their top strategic threat./ The plan was put on the back burner last month after Ukraine unilaterally stopped striking Russian refineries under pressure from President Trump. Kyiv paused strikes on Russian refineries for almost two weeks as Russia continued pounding Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and as Moscow began shipping diesel to the U.S. The U.S. shifted focus to the possibility of a more substantial peace agreement./ Kyiv, however, resumed its air campaign on Friday, launching three attacks on three major Russian refineries in the past three days. This has brought new urgency to the pursuit of a more comprehensive energy ceasefire ahead of three-way peace negotiations that are planned between the U.S., Russia and Ukraine for mid-November in Abu Dhabi. Russia so far has rebuffed American attempts to strike such a deal./ In the view of U.S. negotiators, a Russian comeback to the European natural-gas market would create a powerful incentive for President Vladimir Putin to agree. Using the Soviet-era pipeline network that runs to Europe via Ukraine from the Urengoi gas fields in Siberia would also provide Kyiv with badly needed revenue from transit fees./ White House officials proposed that Russia deposit proceeds earned from these gas sales to Europe into an escrow account in a third-party jurisdiction, so that the Kremlin won’t use the money to finance its war, said a senior U.S. official. They have tried to sell the idea to European leaders as a way to lower energy prices ahead of a winter when Europe’s gas reserves have reached their lowest seasonal level in several years./ Such pressure represents a complete about-turn from Trump’s first administration. Back then, Trump repeatedly chastised German Chancellor Angela Merkel for building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia. He warned that Nord Stream 2 would make Germany “captive to Russia,” and, in late 2019, imposed sanctions on it./ image/ A Nord Stream 2 facility in Lubmin, Germany, in 2022. Michael Sohn/Associated Press/ Just over two years later, Russia—its military funded by energy-export revenues—invaded Ukraine, betting that Europe wouldn’t react because of its heavy economic dependence on Moscow./ The war, however, prompted the Europeans to view dependence on Russian natural gas a strategic vulnerability to a hostile power they no longer trust. The EU has passed legislation sharply curtailing Russian gas imports and outlawing them altogether by the end of next year. The current official European position is that the EU won’t resume purchases of Russian gas even after a full peace agreement with Russia, let alone as part of a tenuous energy ceasefire that allows Putin to continue the war and provides funding for his military./ EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen, in an interview with a Hungarian newspaper in October that his office has confirmed, said the ban on Russian gas imports should be permanent./ “I certainly would not trust Russia. Even if there were peace tomorrow, which we all hope for,” he said./ The Trump administration is wagering that European resistance will prove to be less rigid than meets the eye./ But in private, some senior European officials are more blunt. A senior Nordic official said the idea of resuming Russian gas purchases goes against everything the Europeans stand for, while a senior official from a large European nation compared it to former British leader Neville Chamberlain sacrificing Czechoslovakia to Hitler in exchange for business deals./ The U.S., for its part, now sees an eventual reopening of Nord Stream as a potentially important component of a larger deal, not just to end the war in Ukraine but to resolve Russia’s longstanding friction with America’s European allies. Merkel’s mistake, a senior U.S. official said, was to pursue the pipeline without first working toward a wider security arrangement with Russia that Moscow could feel comfortable with./ Russia and Germany built the first Nord Stream pipeline to bypass the networks running via Ukraine in 2011. Nord Stream 1, which halted deliveries in August 2022, and Nord Stream 2, which was never put into operation, were badly damaged in underwater explosions attributed to Ukraine in September 2022. Restarting them would take considerable time, even if political and regulatory hurdles could somehow be overcome./ A U.S. official said negotiators had discussed various economic proposals throughout negotiations. Europeans have expressed interest in a proposal that would drastically reduce gas prices across the continent, the official said, adding that any economic agreements would be part of a comprehensive peace deal./ By contrast, the network running through Ukraine, with connections to Slovakia and onward to Austria and Germany, could be restarted almost immediately. Limited quantities of gas continued to flow through it until it was shut down in January 2025, well into the full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine./ image/ An Austrian natural-gas distribution hub in Baumgarten an der March, near Vienna, in 2024. Christian Bruna/Getty Images/ Today, just 11% of Europe’s natural gas comes from Russia, down from 45% on the eve of the war. U.S. liquefied-natural gas accounts for 30% of European consumption, while Russian gas is imported either via LNG tankers or through the TurkStream pipelines supplying Hungary and Slovakia./ The fallout from Trump’s war on Iran could erode Europe’s resistance, European officials acknowledge. Qatari liquefied-natural gas shipments remain bottled up inside the Persian Gulf, and a global surge in energy prices has continued even with more oil shipments passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Europe has spent an additional 100 billion euros, about $112 billion, on energy as the result of the war with Iran, according to the EU./ Europe’s underground natural-gas storage is about 75% full, and the continent will enter the coming winter with stocks below the nine-year average, according to the EU’s energy regulators./ Germany’s main opposition party, the far-right Alternative for Germany, has already made the resumption of cheap natural-gas imports from Russia a key part of its campaign ahead of national elections slated for 2028./ / Passengers reboard a train last month after an evacuation prompted by the threat of a Russian drone attack on the Kharkiv-Kyiv route. Tetiana Dzhafarova/AFP/Getty Images/ It would be easier for Europe to change its position if Kyiv endorsed the gas sales as part of a ceasefire that would prevent energy blackouts and a possible humanitarian catastrophe in major Ukrainian cities, potentially triggering a new exodus of refugees in coming months, diplomats said. That is especially so as Ukraine has run out of air defenses, with the U.S. restricting supplies of Patriot interceptors amid a global shortage caused by the war on Iran./ *** Yaroslav Trofimov is the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of The Wall Street Journal, providing reported analysis of major issues and developments around the world. He won the Overseas Press Club award for best commentary on international affairs in 2026 and the National Press Club award for political analysis in 2024. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2023 for his coverage of the war in Ukraine and in 2022 for the coverage of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, among other honors./ A native of Ukraine and a graduate of New York University, Yaroslav joined the Journal in 1999 and previously served as Rome, Middle East and Singapore-based Asia correspondent, as bureau chief in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and as Dubai-based columnist writing on the greater Middle East./ He is the author of a historical novel, “No Country for Love,” and of three books of narrative nonfiction: “Faith at War,” “The Siege of Mecca” and “Our Enemies Will Vanish,” which was a finalist for the Orwell Prize and won the Peterson Literary Prize./ Following/ Drew Hinshaw is a senior reporter with The Wall Street Journal who has reported from more than fifty countries for the paper since 2010. He travels widely, covering breaking news and reporting longer-form investigations. He was a part of a team of reporters whose coverage of China's rising nationalism was a 2021 Pulitzer international reporting finalist. His investigation into cargo ship crews abandoned at sea was a finalist for the Overseas Press Club's top prize for human interest journalism, as well as a Gerald Loeb Award feature finalist./ The Society of Publishers in Asia gave Drew and his colleagues its public service journalism award for their reporting on the origins of Covid-19. His coverage of Liberia during its Ebola epidemic won the 2015 Deadline Club's Enterprise Reporting award./ He is the co-author of "Bring Back Our Girls," an account of the rescue effort to free 276 teenage schoolgirls who had been kidnapped by Boko Haram, which was named the Overseas Press Club’s best nonfiction book on international affairs of 2021./ Joe Parkinson leads The Wall Street Journal's world enterprise team, deploying to the world's biggest breaking stories and piloting deeply reported investigations. His stories often follow financial flows into some of the most opaque corners of the global economy. He is based in Europe but roving widely,