While the move, decided by President Zelenskyy on the first day of this year, can curtail Russia's hold over some central European EU nations like Hungary and Slovakia, the latter may retaliate by continuing to sabotage joint EU decisions on Ukraine, Vare added.

While most EU nations including Estonia made the switch to imported LNG, for instance from the U.S., fairly early on in the current invasion, cheap Russian gas still continued to flow uninterrupted via the Ukraine pipeline, and supplied Austria, as well as Slovakia and Hungary.

However, Vare said, the major blow to Russian gas transit such as it has been had already occurred in those early stages of the full-scale invasion.

Vare said: "The big blow already happened. At one point, the EU got 40 percent of its gas from Russia; now it has dropped to eight percent."

According to Vare, about 12 billion cubic meters of gas still flow every year passed via the Ukrainian pipeline, accounting for 5-6 percent of Europe's gas consumption, mostly in the three countries referenced, though natural gas was also resold to Germany too.

Indicating a further motive for Slovakia and Hungary in going against the EU grain and falling more into the Russia camp is the fact that those two countries are being hit by a double whammy: Not only must they, too, source natural gas from elsewhere, and as landlocked nations an LNG terminal is out of the question, but they will also lose the transit fees Russia paid them for the gas to flow through pipelines in those countries.

In Vare's view, the prime ministers of the two nations, Robert Fico in Slovakia and Viktor Orban of Hungary, have shown themselves to be more aligned with the Kremlin in Russia's war against Ukraine.

This means they may take out their frustrations through retaliatory actions against Ukraine.

"This will undoubtedly undermine the EU's common policy in this area, and that risk exists," Vare added.

Fico notoriously visited Vladimir Putin at the end of last year, and has threatened to use energy warfare, this time with electricity, in the opposite direction.

"Additionally, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has threatened to cut electricity supplies to Ukraine, which accounts for 19 percent of Ukraine's electricity needs," Vare noted.

"Poland, of course, has promised to step in if needed, and so [Ukraine] will manage. This means I see the main problem lying in Hungarian and Slovak prime ministers [potentially] sabotaging joint decisions on Ukraine, and something which is undoubtedly unpleasant," he added, noting that it is nonetheless nothing new.

As for Russia, it will lose revenues from the transit agreement with Ukraine, but the Russian state will certainly endure it even despite the current parlous situation with the Russian economy, Vare went on.

For the state-owned gas company Gazprom, the end of Ukrainian transit means even greater difficulties, noted Vare.

"Approximately five billion dollars is the total cost of this to Russia," he said.

"Let me call to mind that Gazprom was already more than six billion in deficit, so now that deficit will increase, as it all goes through Gazprom's balance sheet," he concluded.

Despite the ongoing conflict, the continued flow of Russian gas through Ukraine is not unusual, as historical examples, like the Confederacy's trade of cotton during the American Civil War, show enemies engaging in trade for mutual benefits.

In the same era but more pertinent to this region, Britain pursued a free ships, free goods policy with regard to the Crimean peninsular, during the mid-19th century war which resulted in a Russian defeat.

At the end of 2024 Vladimir Putin gave a lengthy town hall address, during which he claimed Ukraine's Kursk offensive had been initiated to sabotage the pipeline, which starts in Sudzha, which is in that very oblast.

However, this is not very compelling since Ukraine would not need to go to such lengths for that goal, and could simply switch off the pipeline in its own territory – which it has indeed now done.

The shutoff has left the TurkStream pipeline as the only east-to-west functioning natural gas pipeline which Russia operates.

An added dimension, not least given the time of year, is brought to the table by Moldova and its breakaway, pro-Kremlin region of Transnistria.

Russia has responded by cutting off natural gas supplies to Moldova, but since the latter can obtain gas from neighboring Romania, it is Transnistria — which had been provided gas free of charge by Russia — which has been left out in the cold.

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