Klitschko slams President Macron over Ukraine comments
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Since Russian soldiers invaded Ukraine on February 24, European countries have moved to end their reliance on Russian gas imports. The bloc heavily was heavily dependent on Russian for its energy supplies, accounting for about 40 percent of its imports in 2021. While the rest of the EU looks for ways to reduce the supply of energy from Moscow, through renewable energy deployment or gas supply deals with other countries, France does not seem to have received the memo.
According to figures from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea), France, Belgium and the Netherlands as they purchased shipments of Russian fuel at discounted prices.
The report showed in April and May, France received a dozen shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and other fossil fuel products worth almost €900million (£773million).
Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at Crea, told the Telegraph: “France and Belgium stand out as buyers of Russian LNG on the spot market.
“As the EU is considering stricter sanctions against Russia, France has increased its imports to become the largest buyer of LNG in the world.
“We estimate an 18 percent increase from February-March to May, seasonally adjusted.”
Experts believe that given the EU’s dependence on Russian gas, the bloc is essentially bankrolling the invasion of Ukraine.
Crea’s report showed that in the first 100 days of the war in Ukraine, Russia made €93 billion (£80 billion) in fossil fuel exports.
Of this figure, the EU was responsible for 61 percent of Russia’s total fossil fuel exports, worth about €57billion (£49billion).
In comparison, the bloc has given Ukraine €4.1billion (£3.5billion) in economic support and a further €1.5billion (nearly £1.3billion) in military aid.
Dmytro Natalukha, the head of the Ukrainian parliament’s economic affairs committee, suggested Mr Macron was betraying his country.
He told The Telegraph: “The simple answer is, of course, this is not a way we consider how our allies should behave themselves.
“Those are actions that contradict the words, and provides a whole different context on the calls of the French president [Emmanuel Macron].
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“Given these statistics, it gives you some doubt over his real willingness to end this conflict in the best interests of Ukraine.”
This comes as Mr Macron called on the EU to strengthen its own defence industry rather than spending large sums of money abroad.
Speaking at the Eurosatory international defence conference in Paris on Monday, the French leader said that European defence must become “much stronger.
“Otherwise, we will be building the dependencies of tomorrow.”
He also noted that France and the EU have entered “a war economy in which […] we will have to organise ourselves for the long term.”
He added: “Everything has changed” and “we can no longer live the way we did even a year ago.”
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