Washington is reportedly pressing Europe to take Russian gas back, while Germany’s own state-owned energy company is still buying it. On Wednesday, US envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg, and hours later Russian missiles struck Kyiv again. As Russia continues brutal daily attacks upon Ukrainian civilians, paid for by money raised by Russian energy exports, Ukrainian campaign group Razom We Stand says Berlin must close its own Russian LNG business before it can credibly say no to anyone else’s.
Federally owned SEFE remains bound to Russia’s Yamal LNG project by a contract for 2.9 million tonnes a year until 2040, even though Berlin named Russia responsible in September for the attempted drone attack at Leipzig/Halle airport and closed Moscow’s consulate general in Bonn. The EU’s ban on Russian LNG from long-term contracts does not start until 1 January 2027.
Dr Svitlana Romanko, Founder and Executive Director of Razom We Stand, said:
“We in Ukraine are being asked to accept Russian gas again, while Russian missiles and drones hit our homes and power plants every night. Every cargo of Russian LNG that SEFE takes from Russia’s Yamal LNG project funds those attacks, and every winter price spike is now used as an argument to let the Kremlin back in. To stand with Ukraine, German leaders must end the SEFE contract now, not on 1 January, and stop sending money to the Kremlin’s war chest. Germany can only make their rejection of Russian gas credible by closing their own Russian LNG business first.”
The New York Times and, building on it, the Berliner Zeitung report that US envoys are urging a restart of Russian gas transit through Ukraine as part of a peace deal, and that the German government reportedly rejects the idea, including Russian gas sold through US intermediaries.
Meanwhile, the EU took a record 12.18 million tonnes of Russian Yamal LNG between January and September 2026, 9.5 per cent more than a year earlier and worth an estimated €7.88 billion, according to new Urgewald analysis of Kpler data. SEFE has been selling its Yamal volumes to other EU countries since German terminals were barred from taking Russian LNG in November 2024. Because the contract has a take-or-pay clause and no unilateral termination right, the German government has instructed SEFE to take only the legally possible minimum, and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs has said the EU’s sanctions rules could allow SEFE to invoke force majeure. With Washington having suspended the sanctions and tariffs of the US Graham Act, Europe cannot count on the United States to close the Yamal loophole.
Germany is also under-enforcing against the shadow fleet that carries the oil paying for the war. Greenpeace found that 42 of 136 shadow-fleet tankers took the route past Rügen between March and June 2026, none in the same period a year earlier, and that 31 entered Germany’s 12-mile zone, with no inspections despite repeated reports of false-flagged vessels. Sweden, by contrast, has boarded suspect tankers, including Sea Owl I in March and the EU-sanctioned Flora 1 in April, and Denmark’s maritime authority registered 292 voyages by sanctioned tankers in its waters in 2025.
With winter approaching, now is the time for the German government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) to stop holding back cheaper clean alternatives to Russian gas, starting with its draft reform that would end the fixed feed-in tariff for new small rooftop solar from 2027, and to actively and rapidly back the build-out of heat pumps and solar.
Razom We Stand calls on the German government and SEFE to use powers and deadlines already in place:
- End SEFE’s Yamal contract now, using the force majeure route the economy ministry has described, instead of waiting for the EU ban on LNG from long-term contracts on 1 January 2027
- Move from statements to systematic boardings and inspections of shadow-fleet tankers in German waters, starting with false-flagged vessels as Sweden does, and work with EU partners and the G7 on confiscating sanctions-violating ships and cargo
- Rule out publicly any return of Russian gas to Europe, including transit through Ukraine
- Hold the 1 January 2027 date for the Russian LNG ban despite winter price pressure, and replace the volumes with non-Russian cargoes and lower demand
- Use the EU’s next sanctions package to close the remaining LNG loopholes, including services to the Arc7 tanker fleet that carries Yamal LNG
