Eurostat: 90% drop in EU imports from Russia between Q1 2022 and Q4 2025

The European Union’s various import and export restrictions on several products resulting in a 61 per cent decline in exports to Russia and an 90 per cent drop in imports from Russia between Q1 2022 and Q4 2025, EU statistics agency Eurostat said on February 24.

EU trade with Russia has been strongly affected since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Eurostat said, in a release of figures on the fourth anniversary of the invasion.

More recently, in Q4 2025 compared with the previous quarter, imports from Russia increased by 0.3 billion euro while exports decreased by only 0.1 billion euro.

Consequently the EU’s trade balance with Russia, which had been in deficit until Q1 2025 and turned to a small surplus in Q2 2025, was 1.5 billion euro in Q4 2025.

This marks the third consecutive quarter in which a positive trade balance with Russia has been recorded, Eurostat said.

Moreover, such a surplus is unprecedented in the entire time series, which starts in 2002.

Looking at the changes in Russia’s shares in extra-EU trade, both exports and imports dropped considerably below the levels prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s share in the extra-EU exports fell from 3.2 per cent in Q1 2022 to 1.2 per cent in Q4 2025.

Over the same period, the share of extra-EU imports from Russia fell from 9.2 per cent to 1.0 per cent.

Unlike oil, imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia have not been fully sanctioned by the EU.

Imports of LNG from Russia fell at the beginning of the war, before rising again from Q4 2023. This led the EU, in May 2025, to introduce an updated roadmap to ensure the complete phase-out of its dependency on Russian energy products.

In particular, the plan aims to end all imports of Russian natural gas, both liquefied and gaseous, by the end of 2027. The effects of this renewed plan are expected to become visible in the following quarters, Eurostat said.

Russia’s share in EU imports of LNG decreased from 21 per cent in 2021 to 16 per cent in 2025.

In spite of this decline, Russia remained the EU’s second-largest supplier, although the gap with the main partner widened considerably.

The United States, which accounted for 29 per cent of EU LNG imports in 2021, increased its share to 53 per cent by 2025, reinforcing its position as the dominant supplier.

Russia’s share in EU imports of natural gas in gaseous state decreased from 45 per cent in 2021 to 16 per cent in 2025. The reason why Russia’s share remains notable is that a few EU countries received temporary exemptions because their infrastructure does not allow them to pivot quickly toward alternative suppliers.

Over the same period, Algeria’s share increased the most (+11 per cent), making it the EU’s largest supplier at 27 per cent.

The EU ban on seaborne imports of Russian crude oil along with the subsequent embargo on refined oil products contributed to a significant decrease in imports of these goods from Russia.

As a consequence, the share of petroleum oil imports from Russia fell from 29 per cent in Q1 2021 to just 1 per cent in Q4 2025.

In 2021, Russia was by far the largest supplier of petroleum oils to the EU. By 2025, the US and Norway had become the main partners, their shares increasing by 6 and 4 percentage points, respectively