Speaker Papuashvili: Numerous facts expose EU hypocrisy; they forbade us from trading with Russia while boosting their own imports of Russian liquefied gas

“We watched them forbid us from maintaining any trade relations with Russia, effectively urging us to damage entire sectors of our economy—yet now it turns out they are record-breakers themselves, increasing imports of liquefied gas from Russia,” Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili said.

According to Papuashvili, this underscores the European Union’s hypocrisy, laying bare the gulf between its public rhetoric and its actual conduct.

“We have said repeatedly, and numerous facts confirm, that we are witnessing hypocrisy from the European Union toward Georgia. On the one hand, we saw how they forbade us from any trade with Russia, effectively urging us to harm key sectors of our economy, particularly winemaking and agriculture. Then we discovered that Lithuania was the world’s largest exporter of wine to Russia.

We are seeing the same pattern now with petroleum products and energy resources, be it gas or oil. They tried to persuade Georgia not to purchase affordable energy from Russia and to bar our businesses from importing fuel and other energy carriers. Now it turns out they are breaking records themselves by ramping up imports of Russian liquefied gas.

In monetary terms, what represents our entire annual trade with Russia, they pay Moscow in just a month and a half for liquefied gas alone. Our total annual imports from Russia amount to just over $1.5 billion, whereas the EU pays Russia a billion for liquefied gas alone. Once again, this lays bare the hypocrisy between their public statements and their actual deeds,” Papuashvili said.

For context, Euronews recently reported that in the first ten months of 2026, the European Union spent up to EUR 8.7 billion on Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Arctic, 21% higher than the total expenditure projected for 2025.