Europe bought a record amount of liquefied natural gas from Russia last year, despite EU efforts to divest from the fossil fuels that finance Vladimir Putin’s war fund.

Ships that carried 17.8 million tons of LNG docked at European ports in 2024. This is 2 million more tons than last year, according to Rystad Energy analysts.

Jan-Eric Fähnrich, natural gas analyst at Rystad Energy, told the Guardian that LNG flows are not only increasing, but “are at record levels.”

Europe has decreased the huge imports Russian natural gas through pipelines since the start of the war in Ukraine, but has been buying more and more cargoes of liquefied natural gas from various countries, including Russia.

Last year it even surpassed Qatar as Europe’s second largest supplier of liquefied natural gas, after the US.

In 2024, Europe imported 49.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Russian gas through pipelines and an additional 24.2 billion cubic meters in cold liquid form by ships, according to Fähnrich.

Part of liquefied natural gas will have been resold in other countrieshe added.

The figures come days after Ukraine halted the flow of Russian gas through its pipelines.

It is noted that the EU aims to stop to imports Russian fossil fuels up to 2027but is hesitant to ban natural gas, as it did coal and oil.

In June, member states agreed to ban the “transshipment” of Russian liquefied natural gas going to countries outside the EU from March 2025.

The recent increase in Russian liquefied natural gas imports may be due to efforts to move quantities before the imposition of sanctionsFähnrich said.

Reactions in Ukraine

Ukrainian activists, however, argue that the sanctions regime is undermined by “glaring loopholes” that still allow Russia to fund its war machine with fossil fuel revenues

“Record levels of Russian LNG imports in 2024 are a stark reminder that the EU must act decisively to close the remaining loopholes in its sanctions regime”said Svitlana Romanko, founder of Razom We Stand, a Ukrainian climate campaign group.

“We are up to 15 sanctions packages now, and a complete ban on Russian LNG imports is urgently needed to stop funding Putin’s war fund,” he noted.

She also called on the EU to crack down on Russia’s “shadow fleet” of old and underinsured tankers and to close a refining loophole that allows Europe to import products made from Russian crude into countries such as Turkey and India.