Breaking Europe’s dependence on Russian gas: a case for renewables

Renewables are already cheaper, cleaner and more resilient than imported gas, and Russia’s war revenue is cut by every step of Europe’s energy transition. Ukraine, under fire, is showing how it is done.

As EU leaders meet in Brussels this week, energy prices are high on their agenda. This week European gas has hit its highest price in almost four years. As a Ukrainian, I see a painful paradox here. Europe is itself a target of Russia’s hybrid attacks, yet in 2025 it still paid Moscow more than €15bn for gas. Every euro spent on Russian pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) goes into the Kremlin’s pocket. It deepens Europe’s dependence on Russia and leaves the EU vulnerable to energy blackmail and manipulation. The way out is already being built, in Europe and in Ukraine.

Europe is already winning

The good news is that Europe’s energy transition is working, and faster than many expected. In the second quarter of 2025, renewables generated 52% of the EU’s electricity. Solar set a new record for that quarter. Over the same three months, Russia’s share of EU gas imports fell to 12%, down from 18% a year earlier, and Russian pipeline imports halved.

Last December, the Council and the European Parliament agreed to make reductions permanent. Russian LNG under long-term contracts will be banned from 1 January 2027, and Russian pipeline gas by November 2027 at the latest. For the first time, the end of Russian gas in Europe has a legally binding deadline.

In 2022, the Kremlin bet that a cold winter would break Europe’s support for Ukraine. Europe answered by building wind farms and covering roofs with solar panels. Every turbine and every panel produces energy that Russia cannot sell, tax or switch off.

Renewables are the cheaper choice

Wind and sunlight are domestic and free. Gas is imported, and its volatile prices are set by events Europe cannot control. This year, with LNG shipments disrupted by the war in Iran, EU gas storage at the start of October was at its lowest level for the time of year since records began in 2011.

Electricity prices are set each hour by the most expensive, often gas-producing power plants, so bills follow gas prices even when most power is clean. Therefore the solution is more renewables.

In Spain, so much solar and wind has been built that gas and other fossil fuels now set the price in fewer than one in five hours, compared with three in four in 2019. Every new turbine and panel means fewer hours when gas decides what we pay.

Ukraine is leading the way 

Russia has spent four winters trying to switch my country off. A large centralised power plant can be knocked out by a single strike. Thousands of rooftops cannot.

At a maternity and neonatal centre in Odesa, solar panels and batteries can keep the intensive care unit running for up to 18 hours on a sunny day. Newborns in intensive care do not have to wait for the grid to be repaired. A Dutch-funded programme is putting solar and storage on 23 hospitals and one school for a total of €3.16mn, about €130,000 per building, and expects to cut each facility’s energy costs by a quarter.

These projects are spreading. Under ‘Ray of Hope’, a joint programme of the European Commission and Ukraine’s energy and health ministries, 47 healthcare facilities started generating their own electricity between January and early September this year, and 123 more are under way.

Communities are going further, with municipal microgrids that can disconnect from a damaged national grid and keep hospitals, water pumps and heating running in “island mode”. In May, Ukraine’s energy regulator opened the door to local electricity exchange inside microgrids and energy communities. 

Last June, at our side event at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdańsk, speakers from government, industry and civil society agreed that microgrids and island-mode operation are a practical answer to wartime blackouts, and that Ukraine now needs the legal framework to use them. Ukraine is learning under fire what every European city may one day need.

Europe must accelerate its green transition 

This week’s summit must not treat high prices as a reason to slow down. They are the strongest reason yet to speed up.

First, leaders must hold the line on the Russian gas phase-out. The 1 January 2027 LNG deadline must not slip, and emergency price measures must not become a back door for Russian energy molecules.

Second, every euro of relief should buy lasting protection. Support for households and industry must go to renewables, storage, grids and efficiency, not to locking in new gas imports.

Third, Europe must treat distributed solar, storage and microgrids in Ukraine as critical infrastructure, with priority funding under the Ukraine Facility programme and help to write the rules for island-mode operation.

Ukraine already runs on Europe’s grids and is moving towards full integration with the EU electricity market. Integrating Ukraine more fully into a secure, renewable European energy system would strengthen energy security across Europe and help lower costs.

The views expressed in this #CriticalThinking article reflect those of the author(s) and not of Friends of Europe.