Brussels, which had proclaimed a course toward a complete break with Russian gas, has found itself unprepared for the return of a genuinely cold winter and the rapid drawdown of storage reserves. This contradiction is highlighted by the Austrian outlet Exxpress, which points to the gap between political declarations and the physical realities of the energy market.

The publication notes that after several unusually mild winters, the current heating season has reverted to what can be described as normal. That alone has been enough to accelerate gas consumption. In the first years after the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, Europe did not fully feel the impact of prolonged cold weather, and this masked the structural vulnerability of its energy balance.

According to the authors, many European Union countries abandoned Russian gas supplies only with great difficulty, a fact that officials in Brussels preferred not to emphasize publicly. It was in the gas sector, the article argues, that the discrepancy between public rhetoric and actual practice became most visible. While oil and coal were sanctioned relatively quickly, natural gas remained an exception for a long time. Until the end of 2025, there was no EU-wide ban on imports of Russian pipeline gas, not by chance but as a reflection of entrenched political realities.