In January, Russia started to sell more natural gas to Europe through the TurkStream pipeline and the stocks increased by over 10 percent of the estimated figures of January last year, as estimated by Reuters. The growth is attributed to the fact that Gazprom is still highly dependent on TurkStream as its left pathway to deliver the Russian gas to the European Union.
According to some estimates, rose-by-10.3% year on year in January 2026 Russian gas exports in TurkStream increased. The pipeline delivered 1.73 billion cubic meters (bcm) of the total delivery in the month, which was higher than 1.57 bcm in January 2025.
This increase in flows is after the deterioration of another major path to Russian pipeline gas to Europe at the onset of 2025. As of January 1, 2025, there is no Russian natural gas transit via Ukraine as Kyiv refused to renew the current transit contract with Moscow. This move further decreased the pipeline exports of Russia to the European markets which were already low.
Since 2022, Russian gas deliveries to Europe through pipelines have reduced drastically. This fall was after Russia decided to stop deliveries to various customers in the European Union and termination of gas flow via the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany. In September 2022, Nord stream was shut down after Russia cut supply and the incident of sabotage.
As the transit of gases via Ukraine was terminated on January 1, 2025, the Turkish stream will remain the only pipeline connecting Russian natural gas to Europe. The pipeline passes through Turkey and the Balkans and it still serves a few European nations.
A number of European nations, such as Hungary and Slovakia, are still customers of Russian gas via TurkStream. The supplies are diverted via Turkey and southeastern Europe, which keeps a low pipeline flow of gas exports by Russia to the EU.
Statistics reveal that gas flows across TurkStream are on the increase in the last one year. In January 2026, the average daily deliveries were 55.8 million cubic meters (mcm) in comparison to an average of 50.6 mcm per day in January 2025. The calculations made were relied on the information submitted by the European gas transmission group Entsog. In December, the daily flows were 56 mcm, which means that deliveries have not decreased in the last two months.
Nevertheless, even after the growth of the gas flows through the TurkStream, the total sales of Russia to Europe decreased significantly in the previous year. The sales decreased to the lowest point in 50 years, falling by 44 percent of the level in 2024, mainly because of the lack of gas transit via Ukraine.
Besides, the European Union is still heading towards the elimination of dependence on Russian energy. The 27 EU member states also officially accepted measures to eliminate importation of Russian pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas last month. In the regulation, all LNG imports will be banned starting with the start of the year 2027, with pipeline gas imports banned starting in the fall of the year 2027.