Washington backs proposal to resume Russian gas flows via Ukraine before winter
Key Facts
The United States supports a proposal to resume Russian gas exports to Europe via pipelines running through Ukraine, as part of talks aimed at an energy-sector truce before winter, according to a Wall Street Journal report cited by Reuters. Reuters could not immediately verify the report, making the plan a negotiating proposal rather than an announced agreement. The outline calls for selling the gas through a U.S. intermediary and depositing the proceeds in an escrow account in a third country to limit the risk of their being used to finance the war. The proposal thus puts the restoration of the supply route forward as a negotiating tool tied to financial and political arrangements. The report did not establish that Moscow or European governments had agreed to resume the flows.
According to the Wall Street Journal report, the proposal was discussed during visits by U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to Moscow and Kyiv in September 2026. Washington linked the resumption of gas flows to reaching an energy-sector truce before the cold season, the report said. The proposed route runs through Ukraine's network, which connects gas fields in Siberia to European markets via Slovakia. The report said the network could be brought back online relatively quickly, putting it at the center of the plan to restore supplies. But the speed of restarting operations alone does not determine whether sales can resume; the proposal remains subject to political positions and European rules governing Russian gas imports.
European Union rules pose a regulatory obstacle to the return of Russian gas, requiring imports to decline and setting an end to long-term pipeline gas contracts by 30 September 2027. The deadline may extend to 1 November 2027 under specific circumstances linked to storage levels. This means any arrangement to revive flows would face a timeline set by European rules, as well as the need for political acceptance. The U.S. intermediary and escrow account also raise legal questions about the sales mechanism and where the proceeds would be deposited. The report provided no details on how the proposal could be aligned with the timetable for phasing out Russian gas.
The discussions come as Europe enters the heating season with storage less full than last year. European Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said on 29 October that the bloc was using 18% less gas than in 2022, while storage facilities were 75% full in October 2026, compared with 83% a year earlier. These figures provide context for the sensitivity of supply issues as winter approaches, but they do not establish that the U.S. proposal would change storage levels or ease market pressures. European wholesale gas prices briefly touched 100 euros per megawatt hour on 28 October, for the first time since December 2022. Reuters said prices were close to three times their level before the Iran war, pointing to higher gas costs in the period before the report.
In the United States, initial jobless claims fell by 1,000 to 194,000 in the week ended 24 October, according to data cited by Reuters on 29 October. The figure was below the 199,000 claims expected by economists polled by Reuters, a separate economic context from the gas proposal. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis had set 25 November 2026 as the release date for October personal income and spending data. The next U.S. federal general election is scheduled for Tuesday, 3 November 2026, according to the Federal Election Commission, but that does not establish any effect on Washington's energy or Ukraine policy. The report on the proposal provides no measure of a price impact attributable to the plan, while the next relevant U.S. data event is the November release of the income and spending report.