Bulgaria has announced that it will stop the transit of Russian natural gas through its territory to Serbia and Hungary starting in 2026. The decision comes after renewed calls from US President Donald Trump for European countries to reduce their reliance on Russian energy.
Prime Minister Rosen Jelyazkov, speaking in New York during the UN General Assembly, confirmed that Bulgaria, as an EU member, will follow the bloc’s collective decision to end contracts involving Russian gas transit by 2026. He added that by 2028, Russian natural gas will be completely removed from Bulgaria’s domestic energy supply.
Just a few years ago, Bulgaria relied almost entirely on Russian gas to cover its needs. Today, however, the country imports all of its gas in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG), mainly delivered through the interconnection pipeline with Greece. Jelyazkov noted that Bulgaria has secured highly favorable LNG supply agreements with the United States.
Bulgaria hosts part of the TurkStream pipeline, known locally as Balkan Stream, which serves only as a transit route. The country does not receive gas from the pipeline itself but earns fees for allowing flows through its network. Gazprom has reserved nearly the entire pipeline capacity—about 13 billion cubic meters annually—for deliveries to Serbia and Hungary.
Construction of the Bulgarian section of the pipeline was carried out between 2017 and 2021, and the line was officially launched on January 1, 2022, shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Between its commissioning and the end of March 2024, Bulgaria collected nearly 800 million euros in transit revenue from this infrastructure.
