US floated Europe buying Russian gas as part of a Ukraine peace plan, New York Times reports
Trump’s envoys suggested that Europe could buy Russian gas again and Ukraine could restart its transit pipelines as part of a peace plan, The New York Times reported. European officials reacted negatively.
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President Donald Trump’s administration has floated the idea that European countries buy more Russian natural gas as part of a peace plan to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, The New York Times reported on October 17.
According to the newspaper, Trump’s envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff raised the idea with Ukrainian and European officials, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when they met him in Kyiv last month. They suggested that Ukraine consider restarting the pipelines that used to carry Russian gas to Europe. European officials reacted negatively, the Times reported.
A White House statement said the comprehensive US peace proposal “includes economic incentives for both Russia and Ukraine”, and that the Nord Stream pipelines had not been “a subject of recent discussions”.
Ukraine stopped the transit of Russian gas across its territory in January 2025 and has lost about $1 billion a year in revenue as a result. The European Union has pledged to end Russian gas imports by next year. Russia’s share of EU gas imports fell from 45% in 2021 to 13% last year.
On Friday, President Trump exempted Russia from new sanctions passed by Congress, a week after lifting sanctions on Russian diesel. Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian president’s special envoy, said US-Russian talks had “finally broken the ice”. Zelensky told the Financial Times about the peace talks: “Maybe it will be gas. Definitely it will be gas.”
The story was also discussed by Mongolian users on X, where some criticised Trump for once again bargaining over Ukraine.
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