According to the economic portal E15, Russia will again rank among the fifteen largest exporters to the Czech Republic in 2024. Specifically, it ranked fourteenth, despite persistent sanctions from the European Union. Czech imports from Russia totaled 78.5 billion crowns (about $3.7 billion) last year. The key commodity in these supplies was oil transported through the Druzhba pipeline, the portal said.

Although European countries, including the Czech Republic, have promised to reduce their dependence on Russian energy since 2022, statistics show that this transformation has been gradual. For example, in 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic recorded that 42 % of all imported oil came from Russia, while 58 % were supplied via the western TAL pipeline. This pipeline has been substantially modernised in recent years, expanding its capacity to fully cover domestic consumption without the need for Russian oil.

However, according to Euractiv and the British agency Reuters, Czech refineries, especially those owned by the Orlen group, have held on to imports from Russia for a longer period of time due to better prices. Russian REBCO-type crude was cheaper than alternatives from the North Sea or the Middle East, giving firms higher margins. Even so, prices for consumers at the pump remained stable, Reuters added.

It was only at the beginning of 2025 that the Czech government officially announced the end of its dependence on Russian oil. At that time, Prime Minister Petr Fiala declared that the Czech Republic was already importing crude exclusively from non-Russian sources. This enabled the full launch of the TAL-Plus project, which doubled the capacity of the pipeline leading from Trieste, Italy.

The AP noted that with this move, the Czech Republic has joined the countries that have actually managed to sever energy ties with Russia. Polish think tank OSW added that the Czech Republic can now serve as an example for other Central European countries.

Nevertheless, it remains true that over the period 2022-2024, the Czech Republic imported more than €8 billion worth of oil and oil products from Russia - approximately six times the amount it provided to Ukraine in the form of humanitarian and military aid. The data was published by Investigate Europe, citing European trade statistics.

TASS/gnews.cz - GH