US president calls out the NATO secret

This seems to have been a well-kept secret. Even as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen attacked countries like India for buying Russian oil and indirectly supporting Russia's war in Ukraine, European countries which are members of NATO, which includes the United States, the United Kingdom and Turkey, were continuing to buy oil from Russia in the last three years.

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The figures being cited say that the European Union (EU) purchased 458 of its gas from Russia when the war had begun. It has now been reduced to 13 per cent. The expectation would have been given the EU strongly opposing Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU would have ended the flow of Russian oil. The most probable defence would be that these contracts were made years before the war had begun, and the contractual obligations are being played out. It is a very lame defence if ever there was one.

And there is little doubt that the euro payments for the Russian oil would have greatly helped Russia to sustain its invasion of Ukraine even as the Chinese and Indian purchases of Russian oil would have helped Moscow. European countries have spent $182 billion on Russian oil and gas since 2022, and an earlier commitment of the EU was to phase out Russian purchases by 2028.