Europe’s Blackout War
Maciej Olchawa / Pawel Markiewicz /
An ongoing element of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been targeting and crippling energy infrastructure.
Like Londoners in 1940 seeking shelter from German bombs raining down on them, Ukrainians are often forced to take cover in Kyiv’s metro as Russian missiles and drones barrage their city. Justifying such continuous, large-scale strikes, Vladimir Putin declared, “these attacks on our part were in response to persistent attacks on Russian soil with American ATACMS… Russia will choose the methods of destruction based on the nature of the chosen goals and the threats posed to Russia.”
In January, about 16% of Kyiv’s apartment buildings were left without heat as Ukrainians were hit not only by the Kremlin’s strikes but freezing winter temperatures. While Russia suffered nearly 1.2 million casualties since February 2022 and has gained a meager 1.5% of territory since the start of 2024, such attacks are taking a physical and psychological toll on Ukrainians who were forced to live in the dark.
To help their neighbors withstand rolling blackouts, a Polish fundraiser called “Warmth from Poland for Kyiv” collected close to $2.9 million to buy generators and power stations for Ukraine’s besieged capital. Four years into the war, this campaign’s 77,000 individual donations illustrates how a majority of Poles are still willing to provide financial or in kind donations and organize charity drives for Ukraine.
In an effort to disrupt Russia’s oil and gas exports and its army’s fuel supplies, Ukrainian drones and missiles have also been directed at refineries and pipelines.
While this strategy has general bipartisan support in Poland by leaders who agree that no Russian targets are off limits, Hungary, another NATO-member and neighbor of Ukraine, has lamented these offensive attacks. Faced with the growing threat of the war spilling over into Central Eastern Europe, how are Ukraine’s NATO neighbors preparing to keep their states running if Russia attacks their critical infrastructure?
Poland and Hungary have taken strikingly different paths, encapsulating how energy security and national security intertwine in this region. Warsaw’s strategic foresight proved that phasing out Russian energy in Europe is possible through reinforcing strategic transatlantic alignment.
Diverging Steps
NATO and EU members in Central Eastern Europe drew various lessons from Russia’s economic blackmail, systematic interruptions in gas supplies, and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.
When Poland’s then-president Lech Kaczynski warned of Moscow’s neoimperial ambitions, most Western European leaders sought business as usual. Germany full-heartedly collaborated with Russia on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, with former government officials taking lucrative board positions in Russian energy companies.
Radek Sikorski, Poland’s then defense minister, went so far as to say that such energy deals resembled a new Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.
Outlooks also varied between former Soviet satellites once dependent on eastern pipelines: Warsaw prepared for the worst-case scenario while Budapest failed to diversify its energy sources.
In 2000, Poland relied on Russia for the vast majority of both its oil (over 90%) and natural gas (around 80%), whereas by 2025 it had reduced imports of both to essentially zero through a policy of supply diversification. Today, over 90% of Hungary’s crude oil imports and roughly 72% of its natural gas imports come from Russia.
Despite new geopolitical realities, Budapest largely stuck to the energy status quo. Speaking at a conference in Washington in 2019, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said that his country can’t stop buying Russian gas because there aren’t enough interconnectors that would allow Budapest to buy American liquified natural gas.
Szijjártó ignored hints that the necessary infrastructure could be built if there was political will to do so. Fast forward seven years: When Ukraine hit the Druzhba pipeline, which supplies Russian oil to Hungary (and Slovakia) in August 2025, Szijjártó complained that Brussels and Kyiv tried to drag Hungary into the war.
Diversify, baby, diversify: Poland’s Break with Russian Oil and Gas
Although not without internal disagreements and outrageously disadvantageous contracts with Gazprom, Poland chose to diversify its energy supplies out of a realist necessity to disengage with a Russia that rooted its foreign policy in neo-imperialism and economic blackmail. But, this process did not happen overnight and there were political hurdles along the way.
Despite the signing of an initial agreement between Poland and Norway’s energy companies in 2001, the Polish government abandoned this initiative. Poland’s government argued that it didn’t need additional gas since it was receiving enough from the Yamal contract signed with Russia in 1993.
Asked in a 2009 interview about overreliance on Russian fossil fuels, Poland’s then deputy prime minister sardonically replied, “Does Russian gas not burn well in your stove or furnace?”
When the contract was up for renewal, Russia negotiated from the position of a resource robber baron–their European gas monopoly forced Warsaw to sign an overpriced contract in 2010. Under the “take or pay” clause, Poland was compelled to pay Gazprom for unused gas, forbidden to re-export it for a profit to third countries like Germany or Czechia. Between 2010-2016, Poland paid Gazprom 10-25% more than Germany, despite lower transport costs.
As Russia toyed with supplies to Ukraine as a means of strong arming the nation to its political dominance, Warsaw understood that it could not be laden to Russia as a resource provider. Decisions to build natural gas import and regasification capabilities were made in 2006 and construction began five years later.
The natural gas terminal in ?winouj?cie on the Baltic coast has been in operation since 2015, with an expansion completed in 2025.
A major 24-year long contract was signed in 2018 between U.S. and Polish energy companies, creating the basis for American natural gas imports.
Recent data shows that between 2019 and 2024, American natural gas exports to Poland have more than tripled, increasing from 38,042 to 132,568 million cubic feet (MMcf) annually. Most of this comes from terminals in Louisiana (most notably in Sabine Pass–91,131 MMcf) and Texas, for example Corpus Cristi, (18,129 MMcf).
In addition, the Baltic Pipe was launched in 2022 as a means of further diversifying energy supplied from Norway’s North Sea to Poland via Denmark. In 2024, alongside 41% of Poland’s imported natural gas coming from American liquefied natural gas, an additional 38% came through the Baltic Pipe, making Norway the second largest supplier of Poland’s fossil fuels.
This mix can be a lifeline in times of war. Poland understands this, aiming to become one of Central Eastern Europe’s energy hubs. In February 2025, Ukraine received its first delivery of U.S. natural gas via Poland, which according to Naftohaz, can provide gas to 700,000 families during one winter month. U.S. natural gas exports to Ukraine through the terminal in ?winouj?cie could reach 35 billion cubic feet this year.
Energy Security Challenges
A regional transition is taking shape, seeing the source move from the traditional southern coal mines of Silesia to the Baltic Sea coast in the north, becoming Central Eastern Europe’s energy-import corridor. Securing this sea is critical to Poland and the region’s future energy sovereignty.
A well-developed network of liquefied natural gas, oil, and fuel terminals, as well as pipelines and interconnectors significantly helped the countries of the region diversify their energy resource supply and consumption. In addition to hydrocarbons, infrastructure on the Baltic will also be a major source of Poland’s electrification.
Plans to develop a nuclear power plant, low-emission power generation from SMR technology, and off-shore wind farms will speed-up the country’s transition away from coal-fired electricity production. It’s estimated that thanks to this mix 60% of Poland’s energy resource consumption will come from Baltic Sea infrastructure by 2040.
This ambitious transition presents a major concern for securing Poland’s energy hub. Russia is increasing aggressive maneuvers and tactics aimed at the Baltic Sea region’s energy sector–reconnaissance of strategic assets, cyberattacks, disrupting maritime traffic, and damaging infrastructure, especially via its nefarious “shadow fleet” of vessels.
Since 2023, Russia damaged over 11 subsea cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea, including ones linking Finland and Estonia and the Balticonnector gas pipeline. While the Kremlin lost the ability to exert direct leverage over countries, like Poland, by cutting off energy supplies, it now aims to destabilize the maritime environment of the Baltic as a means of complicating new investments, trade flows and resource deliveries, which can severely hinder further development and diversification.
Implications and Strategic Choices
Russia will continue to be a nuisance toward Europe’s critical infrastructure and energy sector, employing a mix of hybrid attacks, propaganda, and conventional or unconventional military actions.
Like others, Poland recognizes the security challenges that its ambitious energy diversification faces. For this reason, Warsaw is pursuing a policy centered around close defense ties with its Nordic and Baltic partners.
Most recently, Poland announced it will buy three Swedish submarines to jointly patrol underwater infrastructure. This decision is part of a bolder naval modernization plan that aims to host a regional NATO maritime command in the coastal city of Gdynia by 2028 to strengthen the Baltic’s security architecture with partners by keeping this crucial energy corridor safe, open, and free.
Hungary’s (and Slovakia’s) continuing reliance on Russia for their energy needs provides the Kremlin with leverage and a dangerous back-door into one of Europe’s most pressing debates – how to ensure stable energy supplies when domestic production is limited without being overreliant and susceptible to political coercion.
Many Europeans are more cautious today when it comes to purchasing Russian resources. However, the ongoing Iran conflict and its implications for global energy supply has provided Putin an opportunity to flirt with Europe about once again satiating their demands by purchasing from Moscow.
While using Poland as a point of entry and future hub for American liquefied natural gas to Europe, Washington needs to maintain these sanctions to pressure the Kremlin to cease its aggressive foreign policy toward Ukraine and allies in Central Eastern Europe while curtailing Russia’s war waging capabilities. Completely phasing out Russian energy is in the U.S. national interest to keep American natural gas in and Europe strong.
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