CLAIM: President Donald Trump asserted on Tuesday that European countries have spent more money buying Russian oil and natural gas than they have on supporting Ukraine.
FACT CHECK: Probably True.
During his first joint address to Congress since his inauguration in January, President Trump emphasized his desire to see an end to Russia’s three-year-old invasion of Ukraine and highlighted his efforts to facilitate negotiations. In commenting on the situation in Ukraine, he condemned European Union countries for advocating for Ukraine verbally but financially supporting Russia.
“Europe has sadly spent more money buying Russian oil and gas than they have spent on defending Ukraine — by far!” Trump asserted. “Think of that, they’ve spent more buying Russian oil and gas than they’ve spent defending.”
The terms of many European agreements to buy Russian oil, coal, and natural gas are not public, so information regarding how much the European Union is spending funding the Russian economy are, at best, estimates. The most sophisticated estimates suggest, however, that EU countries are spending far more on Russian fuel than on aid to Ukraine.
Beyond Fossil Fuels, an advocacy group calling for more renewable energy, estimates that the European Union has collectively spent $206 billion on Russian oil, natural gas, and coal since February 2022, when Russian strongman Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of his neighbor with the intent to overthrow democratically elected President Volodymyr Zelensky. Excluding coal, the estimate remains almost the same at $202 billion. Beyond Fossil Fuels explains that its Russian fuel purchase monitor “uses pricing models to predict what is paid under contracts that are not publicly disclosed.” It indicates that the model is “likely to result in lower cost estimates than those using more simplistic calculations valuing imports at spot prices.”
In contrast, the news organization Reuters tallied that Europe has spent $138.75 billion in aid to Ukraine, including both military and humanitarian aid, since January 2022.
At the end of 2022, research published in the German newspaper Handelsblatt indicated that European Union imports of Russian liquified natural gas (LNG) hit record levels that year, a 21-percent increase documented after the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
The trend suggested by these statistics does not appear to be the product of a lag between the invasion beginning in 2022 and Europe responding by reducing Russian fossil fuel consumption. Another study published in March by another anti-fossil fuel advocacy group, the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), found that Europe similarly spent more on Russian fuel than Ukraine aid in 2024. According to CREA, Europe spent $23 billion on various forms of Russian fossil fuels, while it spent only $19.6 billion in foreign aid to Ukraine that year.
“Despite a host of sanctions, Russian revenues in the third year have dropped by a mere 8% compared to the year prior to the invasion of Ukraine,” CREA observed.
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