Sitter, NickAndersen, Svein S.2025-10-092025-10-092025-03-121500-606910.23865/magma.v28.1488https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/27905The war in Ukraine is also a geopolitical conflict between the West and Putin's Russia. When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the relationship between the EU and Russia changed from peace to a hybrid conflict. Between 2014 and Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, both sides stepped up the conflict, particularly with economic instruments. In 2022, Vladimir Putin deployed the "energy weapon", hoping to split the EU and weaken its ability to act decisively. This article deals with the development of the EU's relationship with Russia and the EU's strategy to link Russia more closely to the liberal international world order through energy trade up to 2014, the transition to a more geopolitical strategy in the following years, and open economic conflict today. The EU has long seen gas as a strategic commodity. The debates in the EU about how to deal with dependence on Russia meant that the organization was well prepared in 2022, even if this was under-communicated to Moscow. The EU's, and especially Germany's, forceful response to Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine created far higher tension than Putin probably expected. Strongly reduced gas trade is an important part of this picture, although it has been overshadowed somewhat by Western economic and military support for Ukraine. The EU's liberal strategy may have failed to prevent war between Russia and Ukraine, but the EU's regulatory toolbox quickly proved to play a central role in dealing with Putin's use of gas as a weapon.norcc-byhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong InstitutionsJournal articleSitter, N & Andersen, S S 2025, 'Risikofylt Energihandel og EUs Geopolitiske Skifte', Magma, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 123-130. https://doi.org/10.23865/magma.v28.1488