Ukraine’s allies warn Europe against returning to Russian gas as part of a peace deal
A chimney and pipes at the BKM Nonprofit Fotav Zrt power plant in Budapest, Hungary, on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Ukraine’s closest allies have warned against the European Union reopening Russian gas pipelines as part of a potential peace settlement, with one Baltic nation describing the prospect as “not a good solution in any way.”
It comes shortly after the Financial Times reported that EU officials were considering whether to restore gas flows from Russia to Europe as part of a settlement to end the Kremlin’s years-long Ukraine war.
The report, which was published on Jan. 30 and cited unnamed sources familiar with discussions, said the idea had been endorsed by some EU officials as one way of lowering regional energy costs.
Estonia, a NATO member which shares a 294-kilometer (183 miles) border with Russia, is among those calling on the 27-nation bloc not to reopen Russian gas pipelines.
The Eastern European country said the EU must not allow itself to become dependent on Russian energy as part of a Ukraine peace settlement, noting that restoring gas flows would be inconsistent with the bloc’s goal of phasing out Russian fossil fuel imports by 2027.
“We have seen in history that Russia has used energy as a weapon. Russia has repeatedly demonstrated this — and so, going back is not a good solution in any way,” Kadri Elias-Hindoalla, director of Estonia’s foreign affairs’ sanctions and strategic goods department, told CNBC via video call.
In this pool photograph distributed by Russian state owned agency Sputnik, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting regarding the situation in the Kursk region, in his residence in Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow, on August 12, 2024.
Gavriil Grigorov | Afp | Getty Images
Europe should have learned its lesson when Russian forces invaded Georgia in 2008, Estonia’s Elias-Hindoalla said, adding that the Ukraine war has since reaffirmed the importance of finding alternative suppliers and improving the bloc’s energy independence.
“Our position is very clear: We should maximize sanctions and limit Russia’s energy imports as much as possible,” Elias-Hindoalla said.
The foreign ministries of Russia and Ukraine did not respond when contacted by CNBC for comment.
For its part, the European Commission said it is “not making any links” between the reopening of Russian gas and Ukraine peace talks. The European Commission is the EU’s executive arm.
“Whenever we have such talks, when that moment comes, it will be with Ukraine and we do not confirm any links reported in the article … about any links between the transit of gas through Ukraine and any peace talks,” EU spokesperson Paula Pinho said in a press briefing on Thursday.
The EU’s plan, Pinho said, remains to stick to the gradual phasing out of Russian gas. The bloc adopted a 15th package of sanctions against Russia late last year, seeking to further weaken Russia’s military and industrial capabilities.
‘One of the worst ideas in the history of the world’
Lithuania, which was occupied by the Soviet Union until 1990, has said that securing an end to the fighting in Ukraine must take place with Kyiv’s full involvement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy underlined this message in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this month, warning it would be “very dangerous” to exclude Kyiv from talks between the U.S. and Russia about how to end the invasion.
Speaking during a virtual appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Jan. 23 that he would like to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin “soon” to find a way to end the Ukraine war.
Former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said the prospect of peace through dependence on Russian gas was “demonstrably one of the worst ideas in the history of the world.”
“The suggestion to reinstate this disastrous policy is nothing more than spitting on the graves of its innocent victims,” Landsbergis said in social media post on Jan. 30.
Even in the event of an end to the Ukraine war, Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda has warned that his country’s geographical position could make it vulnerable to a broader conflict. The country of 2.8 million borders Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave to the west and Moscow’s ally of Belarus to the east.
Europe’s gas supply shift
Russian gas exports to Europe via Ukraine came to halt at the start of 2025, marking the end of Moscow’s decades-long dominance over the region’s energy markets.
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy said at the time that the end of Russian gas transit through his country to Europe represented “one of Moscow’s biggest defeats” and called on the U.S. to supply more gas to the region.
Russia, meanwhile, warned that EU countries would likely suffer the most from the supply shift. Moscow is still able to send gas via the TurkStream pipeline, which links Russia with Hungary, Serbia and Turkey.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers a speech during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on January 21, 2025.
Fabrice Coffrini | Afp | Getty Images
Poland, a staunch Ukraine ally and another European country that shares a border with Russia’s Kaliningrad, has also urged EU countries not to reopen Russian gas flows.
“I can only hope that European leaders will learn lessons from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and that they will push through a decision to never restore the pumping of gas through this pipeline,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said in an interview with the BBC last month.
His comments referred to the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, which connects Russia and northern Germany via the Baltic Sea.
In a move that helps the brand duck protectionist anti-Chinese tariffs, Volvo Cars has switched production of its award-winning EX30 models destined for US roads from its Zhangjiakou plant in China to the Ghent facility in Belgium.
Volvo EX30 production began in the company’s Ghent factory back in April, but those first cars were earmarked for the Swedish domestic and European export markets, but that move wasn’t primarily motivated by avoiding tariffs. As Electrive reports, the company seemed happy enough to continue importing its small electric crossover from China and accepting the new 28.8% tariffs (up from 10%), but the wait times to get the vehicles shipped in from China was imply too long.
In 2024, Swedish and German buyers had to wait up to eight months for their EX30 in some cases, according to Volvo Cars’ European boss, Arek Nowinski, per Automotive News. Once production in Ghent is fully up to speed, however, wait times should be cut to about 90 days. Those wait times, and the price hike associated with the tariffs, have hurt sales of the originally Chinese-made Volvo EV. In 2024, for example, the EX30 ranked third in European EV sales, but slipped out of the top 10 first half of 2025.
“The car is now being built in Europe, which means faster delivery times,” Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson to Automotive News. “We should return to the sales and market share figures for the EX30 that we had before the introduction of tariffs.”
Coming to Staying in America
The EX30’s switch to Ghent is good news for American fans of the compact, lickety-quick Volvo EV. Now that it’s no longer exclusively made in China, Volvo has decided to give it a stay of execution as it revamps its US product lineup to better align with market trends (read: SUVs) and the changing political landscape (read: tariffs and inflation).
The reason? The Made in China version of the EX30 would virtually unsellable in the US due to the implementation of 147% tariffs on vehicles imported from China. Vehicles imported from Europe, meanwhile, carry just 15% tariffs, keeping the EX30 in a competitive price bracket.
Expect to see both Ghent and South Carolina play an increasingly large role in Volvo’s US product mix – at least for the next three-odd years.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Volvo Cars, Automotive News, via Electrive.
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New filings have revealed that BYD is about to release a ridiculous 3,000 hp electric supercar: the Yangwang U9 Track Edition.
BYD already shocked the world when it launched the Yangwang U9, its first all-electric supercar.
It featured four advanced electric motors with a combined power of nearly 1,300 horsepower. The U9 can accelerate from 0 to 62 mph (0 to 100 km/h) in just 2.36 seconds.
With a motor at each wheel and a highly advanced electric-air suspension, the U9 can turn on itself and even jump over potholes.
But that was only the beginning.
Based on a new filing with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), BYD is preparing to launch a new ‘Track Edition’ of the Yangwang U9:
When an automaker releases a “track” version of a car, it typically primarily features body changes for better aerodynamic performance, adding downforce, and it will also often feature bigger brakes.
The Yangwang U9 ‘Track Edition’ appears to feature all that… and much more.
The filing reveals that BYD updated the motors at each wheel to a new 555 kW motor. That’s a higher-performing motor than in most performance electric vehicles. The U9 Track Edition has four of them for a total of 2,220 kW (3,019 hp).
I would have thought that this was a typo if it wasn’t for the insane electric vehicles coming out of China these days.
Here are a few pictures from the MIIT filing:
There are a lot of performance specs that are not included in the MIIT filing. Therefore, it will be interesting to see when the vehicle is fully unveiled and BYD reveals what kind of performance it can achieve with 3,000 hp packed in 4 electric motors.
Here are a few other features mentioned in the filing:
Standard features:
- 20-inch wheels with 325/35 R20 tyres
- Carbon-fibre roof
- Large fixed carbon-fibre rear wing
- Rear diffuser with adjustable blades for aerodynamic optimisation
Optional aerodynamic parts:
- Standard or enhanced carbon-fibre front splitter
- Electric rear wing
Electrek’s Take
How are they going to keep that thing from flying away? Seriously.
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