DISINFO: EU faces up to €1 trillion loss over cutting Russian gas
SUMMARY
The EU faces up to a €1 trillion loss over cutting Russian gas, as nearly all flows from Russia to the bloc stopped when Kyiv terminated its transit deal with Moscow. The EU’s economic growth had slowed significantly since halting Russian gas imports, while Russia’s economy continues to demonstrate resilience.
RESPONSE
The figure is unverifiable and very possibly made up, as no original source, timeframe, or any other measurable parameters are provided. This is part of what some experts have labelled Russia’s economic war propaganda, aimed at convincing the world about the futility of the sanctions against Russia and the need to remove them as they only harm the countries imposing them.
While it is true that EU’s economic growth has slowed down compared to the early years of the decade, with GDP growth falling from 6.01% in 2021 to 3.48% in 2022 to 0.45% in 2023, it started to slowly grow again in 2024 to 0.9%. And despite the claims of this disinformation story, there is mounting evidence of Russia’s economic troubles (see here and here for full debunking of claims about Russia’s alleged economic resilience).
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Europe is committing energy suicide without Russia, that instead of crushing Russia, sanctions led to US debt and Europe’s freezing, that according to the Draghi report, EU faces economic difficulties due to rejection of Russian energy, or that a potential ban on Russian LNG supplies would cost the EU one-fifth of imports.