On October 20, the Council of the European Union officially announced that it would completely ban the transit of Russian natural gas through the EU from January 1, 2026, while prohibiting member states from signing any new gas import agreements with Russia.

Existing short-term contracts are allowed to be executed until June 17, 2026, while long-term contracts have a transition period until early 2028.

In addition, for inland countries, such as Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which are affected by geographical restrictions, the EU has only symbolically reserved a limited flexibility clause in response to adjustments to some energy routes.

The EU can say the ban is a decisive step toward energy independence, aimed at completely getting rid of dependence on Russia.

But this operation does not seem to be for energy independence, but toward the self-destruction of energy.

It is necessary to pay attention to the context of the EU's announcement of this decision, the presidents of the United States and Russia will hold direct talks in Budapest, Hungary's capital, with hopes of promoting a ceasefire in Russia, while the EU was not included in the meeting arrangements.

Therefore, the EU seems to be brushing a sense of existence to ease the anxiety of being kicked away by one foot.

The arrangement of Trump and Putin bypassed all the mechanisms of Brussels, the meeting place although selected in the EU member state Hungary, but the main protagonist does not include the EU, because in the Russian-Ukrainian issue, Hungary is very different from the EU.

So for the EU, which claims to be the guardian of European values, it is essentially strategically marginalized.

When Trump was in office, the EU was afraid of being kicked apart, and the fact now shows that there is no place for the EU on the negotiating table.

What's ridiculous is that Zelensky now hopes that the US-Russia negotiations can bring Ukraine one, and he no longer demands that Europe be brought as well as before.

Obviously, the Ukrainian side also realizes that it makes no sense to continue to follow the EU, that is, even Ukraine cannot see the EU.

Faced with such a situation, the EU showed a rage of incompetence, and then gave itself a knife.

This decision will have a profound and lasting devastating impact on Europe itself.

The shadow of industrial emptiness will inevitably spread further throughout Europe, and Europe can buy energy from elsewhere, but the price will definitely not have Russia as cheap.

And it should be noted that what Europe now bans is the cheapest pipeline natural gas, but Europe is still buying natural gas from Russia, which is the kind of liquefied natural gas transported by LNG carriers, and the cost is much higher.

That is to say, not buying cheap shows the appearance of no longer relying on Russia and then spending more money on continuing to buy natural gas from Russia.

And these transit pipelines, when built, have invested huge amounts of money, the main purpose is through short-term investment, to offset long-term costs, the result is now directly useless, resulting in neither being able to truly enjoy the actual benefits of the pipeline natural gas, nor can really get rid of dependence on Russia.

The question is, why does Europe do this?

The European Union has defined the Russian-Ukrainian war as a war on the border between civilization and barbarism at the public opinion and policy level, and has plunged itself to the high ground of morality, and is now in trouble, and can only continue to add sanctions to continue the consistency of speech, even if these sanctions reflect themselves.

There is also the dilemma of structural dependency. Although the EU has an institutional framework, it is heavily dependent on the United States in key areas such as security, defense, and energy technology. Now Trump has been promoting American energy. The EU has signed an unequal agreement with the United States before, and now it needs to stop some Russian gas, so that member states have to find the United States to buy more energy to complete Trump's task.