Serbia locks in Russian gas through October as Gazprom's Balkan grip outlasts Ukraine transit collapse

Serbia locks in Russian gas through October as Gazprom's Balkan grip outlasts Ukraine transit collapse Belgrade's extension of a 6.1mcm/day supply deal shows Russian pipeline gas still anchoring southeast Europe even as Moscow's wider EU market share has shrunk to single digits. Serbia has extended its contract for Russian gas at 6.1 million cubic metres a day through October, Montel reported, keeping Belgrade tied to Gazprom supply months after most of Europe severed its pipeline links to Moscow.⁶ The extension runs against the dominant story of the past three years. Ukraine halted the transit of Russian gas to European customers on Wednesday (2026-05-13), when a prewar transit deal expired almost three years into Moscow's invasion, NPR reported.⁴ Serbia's gas now arrives by a different route, via Bulgaria and the Balkan corridor, the path Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic celebrated at the start of the year, according to DW.⁶ The scale of Russia's retreat from Europe is not in dispute. Before the war, Russia supplied nearly 40% of the European Union's pipeline natural gas, NPR reported, citing EU Commission data.⁴ By 2023 that share had collapsed to about 8%.⁴ Against that, Serbia's continued reliance looks like an exception rather than a trend. But it is an exception Moscow is working hard to keep.⁶ The Balkans are where Gazprom is fighting to hold ground. In Bulgaria, once dependent on Russia for 95% of its gas under a contract requiring it to buy at least 80% from Gazprom, the former monopolist has heavily discounted supply to its "brotherly" Slavic nation, Natural Gas World reported.⁵ DW described the regional market as reshaped at the start of the year by events with far-reaching consequences, including the loss of Gazprom's monopoly.⁶ Serbia's extension fits that picture: cheap Russian molecules defending a foothold even as the company loses pricing power.⁵ There is a further wrinkle that complicates the clean narrative of European decoupling. Azerbaijan, the country Brussels has courted to replace Russian gas, has itself begun importing gas from Russia, Eurasianet reported, raising the question of whether Baku is meeting its European obligations partly with Russian supply.⁷ Politico made the same point bluntly, arguing that Europe's Azerbaijan gas deals could ultimately benefit Russia.⁸ For a trader, the implication is that headline import-source figures may overstate how far Europe has actually moved.⁷ Russia, for its part, is redirecting volumes east rather than mothballing them. Its natural gas production fell 3.2% in the first half of 2025 to 334.8 billion cubic metres, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday (2026-05-20), as higher Chinese exports and domestic demand failed to offset the loss of European pipeline flows.² China has lifted intake through the Power of Siberia pipeline by more than 20% this year, occasionally exceeding contractual minimums, and is now Russia's top gas customer.² Those flows are projected to reach the pipeline's 38 bcm annual ceiling this year.¹ The eastern pivot deepened further. Russia and China signed a legally binding deal on Tuesday (2026-05-19) to build the long-delayed Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, CNBC reported, a link capable of carrying 50 bcm a year from West Siberia to northern China via eastern Mongolia.³ Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller confirmed the capacity, Interfax reported.³ That is the strategic backdrop to Belgrade's small extension: the customer base is shifting, but the Balkan contracts are what keep Gazprom present in Europe at all.³ The economics still favour the arrangement for Serbia. Russian LNG output fell 5.1% to about 16.5 million tonnes in the period, federal statistics showed, even as pipeline gas to China climbed.¹ A discounted long-term pipeline contract priced off Russian supply remains cheaper for landlocked Serbia than buying into the LNG-linked European market, where ICE Endex TTF front-month traded near €49 on Tuesday (2026-06-09).⁵ The unresolved risk is durability. The contract runs only to October, and Serbia has no obvious alternative if the Balkan route is disrupted or if EU pressure to cut Russian supply hardens. Whether Belgrade signs a longer extension beyond October, and on what terms, is the next signal worth watching for anyone tracking Russia's last pipeline footholds in Europe.⁶