Kimberly Guilfoyle, the US ambassador to Greece, told a dinner of Greek and US officials in Athens in March that the United States could remove governments, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation published online on the evening of 25 September. Speaking about the impending collapse of Romania's government, she told the table: "We can do that to any country we want. We can do that here." The account comes from one person who attended the dinner and others who were told about it. Jesse Binnall, Guilfoyle's lawyer, disputed the characterisation of the exchange. Romanian journalists who compared the editions said the passage on Romania did not appear in the newspaper's print edition.

Stavros Papastavrou, the Greek minister of environment and energy, argued with Guilfoyle in front of the other guests and told her the United States could not replace a Greek government elected by the Greek people. Neither Papastavrou nor the Greek government had confirmed or denied the account by 27 September.

Ilie Bolojan's coalition government in Romania lost a no-confidence vote on 5 May, when 281 deputies and senators voted against it, well above the 233 required. The Social Democratic Party (PSD) had quit the coalition on 25 April and filed the motion together with the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR). The investigation does not name Bolojan and does not report that the United States organised the vote. Guilfoyle's remark at the Athens dinner came at least four weeks before the PSD left government.

Romgaz, Romania's state-controlled gas producer, examined a proposal in December 2025 to buy US liquefied natural gas for 20 years from Atlantic-SEE LNG Trade, the joint venture controlled by Aktor. The gas would have landed at the Alexandroupolis terminal in northern Greece and been priced against the US Henry Hub benchmark. Romgaz put the delivered cost at €33 to €42 a megawatt hour against European forward prices of €30 to €40 for 2030 to 2040, estimated annual losses of €50 million to €310 million depending on the spread between the two markets and declined to sign. Its analysis found the contract was not justified on economic, commercial or strategic grounds.

Guilfoyle dined with Sorin Grindeanu, the PSD leader, Bogdan Ivan, then the PSD energy minister, and Florin Vlădică, an adviser to President Nicușor Dan, at the Isoletta restaurant in Bucharest on 31 March. Photographs of the dinner were published in Romania on 26 September. The PSD left the government on 25 April.

The players

Kimberly Guilfoyle, US ambassador to Greece

Kimberly Guilfoyle, 57, is a former San Francisco prosecutor and Fox News host. She was married to Gavin Newsom, now governor of California, and was later engaged to Donald Trump Jr., who began dating her during his father's first term. She spoke at the Republican conventions of 2020 and 2024. After photographs of Trump Jr. with the Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson emerged in summer 2024, President Donald Trump named Guilfoyle ambassador to Greece that December. He told people he did so for his son's sake, saying "I had to get her out of here", according to the investigation; a White House official denied he said it. She was sworn in in September 2025 and arrived in Athens on 1 November 2025.

Guilfoyle said in 2015, as a Fox News host during the Greek debt crisis, that Greeks needed to be trained like when a "dog pees on the rug". Between her engagement and her appointment she registered trademarks for hair care, fragrance, champagne and pet pharmaceutical ventures, all since abandoned. Around the time of her Senate confirmation she sought investors for Polished Rice, a vodka company she founded in 2024, including a pitch to one Greek businessman in the diaspora for a $3 million stake, according to a person familiar with the matter. Binnall disputed that and said she has pursued no private business since entering public service. The vodka was due to launch at a "global VIP event" in Greece on 2 July, the day of the embassy's Independence Day reception, before a shipment arrived with broken bottles, according to a lawsuit Polished Rice filed against its distiller.

Guilfoyle arrived in a region where only one of 10 countries had a confirmed US ambassador, and she has travelled to Bulgaria, Albania and Romania to promote the Vertical Gas Corridor, which is designed to carry US LNG landed in Greece north to Ukraine. She has close to two million Instagram followers and has attended Paris Haute Couture Week with her stylist, who posts under the name Fancy James. At a conference in Thessaloniki in early September she praised the Atlantic-SEE agreement with Venture Global and told the audience: "You're welcome, Greece."

Christos Marafatsos and Catalyst Strategies

Christos Marafatsos, 39, grew up in Maryland and holds degrees from the University of Maryland and Georgetown University. He co-founded Delta Produce, a distributor of local food to restaurants in the capital region, and later worked in an investment firm, a since-dissolved medical research company, an Acropolis IMAX 3-D project and his family's construction business. He joined Trump's first campaign in 2015, was named vice-chairman of the National Diversity Coalition for Trump in January 2017 and chaired Greek Voices for Trump in 2020. He helped prepare Guilfoyle for her Senate confirmation hearing and attended her swearing-in.

Marafatsos registered as a federal lobbyist for the first time on 5 November 2025, four days after Guilfoyle arrived in Athens. His firm, Catalyst Strategies LLC, lists him as its only lobbyist, and its filings name five clients:

  • Aktor Energy S.A., on behalf of the Aktor Group, from the fourth quarter of 2025, to engage "State Department and Executive Branch officials to establish connections and provide information on the company's projects and alignment with U.S. policy priorities". Aktor paid $160,000 through June 2026, and the firm lobbied the Executive Office of the President and the State, Energy and Interior departments.
  • PPC North America Corporation, the Delaware subsidiary of Greece's Public Power Corporation, from the first quarter of 2026, paying $30,000 a quarter.
  • Onex Technologies, a New York shipbuilding company whose foreign interest is the Greek industrialist Panos Xenokostas, owner of the Elefsis shipyards, paying $60,000 a quarter.
  • ASMA Associates, a British company that acquires and develops energy assets, paying $30,000 a quarter.
  • O&G International Ventures, wholly owned by Georgios Tzellos of Greece, from the second quarter of 2026, paying $40,000.

The filings show about $440,000 in lobbying income from all five clients in nine months. People who met Marafatsos with Guilfoyle, including government officials, said he did not mention his work for Aktor. An investor who asked the ambassador for help with energy deals was told to follow up with Marafatsos and learned only later that the company paid him. Some foreign officials took him for her chief of staff. He held her phone before she went on stage in Thessaloniki; Binnall said her dress had no pockets. Marafatsos said he was "proud to champion commercial initiatives that advance U.S. interests and create lasting economic opportunity in Greece and Southeastern Europe". His lawyer disputed parts of the reporting without saying which.

Marafatsos was chosen in June 2016 to represent Greek and Cypriot voters on the National Diversity Coalition for Trump, whose co-chair was Michael Cohen, then Trump's personal lawyer. A Greek diaspora news report in July 2016 said the campaign picked him as its Greek adviser on Cohen's recommendation. He succeeded Omarosa Manigault as the coalition's vice-chairman in February 2017, with Cohen as chairman. He launched Greek Voices for Trump for the 2016 and 2020 campaigns and advised the Republican National Committee's strategic initiatives team, according to the Conservative Political Action Conference, which announced on 12 March 2026 that he would join its 2026 conference. On 9 October 2024 he co-chaired a Greek diaspora rally for Trump in Philadelphia with the congressmen Gus Bilirakis and Nicole Malliotakis, where Richard Grenell was the main speaker. At the White House Greek Independence Day reception on 24 March 2025, Trump said: "Christos Marafatsos. Where's Christos? Good looking guy he is." At the same reception on 26 March 2026 Trump named him as "the chairman of Greeks for Trump".

Marafatsos was the main speaker at a seminar on Greek-Israeli relations held by the Society of Athenians on 8 April 2025. Adonis Georgiadis, the Greek health minister, attended and said Marafatsos was "an important communication bridge between the new US Government and Greece". Marafatsos told a Greek newspaper on 12 May 2025: "Just as we support Israel unconditionally, we must support Greece with the same clarity and resolve." Three days later he spoke at a business summit in New York on the Eastern Mediterranean, where he said "the US-Israel relationship has been a priority of the Trump administration from the start" and pointed to Greece's alignment with Israel and Cyprus. His speaker profile says he manages projects in the US, South America, Europe and the Middle East without naming them. Onex, one of his lobbying clients, agreed in June 2020 with the Israeli state-owned Israel Shipyards to co-build the Themistocles corvette, five years before he registered to lobby for Onex.

Alexandros Exarchou and the Aktor Group

Aktor was founded in 1987 by the businessman Sokratis Kokkalis and grew into one of Greece's largest construction contractors inside the Ellaktor group. Intrakat, the builder led by Alexandros Exarchou, agreed to buy Aktor from Ellaktor on 31 March 2023 and renamed itself the Aktor Group in October 2024. Intrakat named its main shareholders at the time as Exarchou and the shipowners Dimitris Bakos and Ioannis Kaimenakis. Aktor raised €650 million in a capital increase in July 2026, and Exarchou said investors offered more than €1.3 billion. Greek competition authorities fined Aktor €38.5 million in 2017 for its part in a bid-rigging cartel in public works between 1989 and 2012.

Exarchou, chairman and chief executive of the group, holds a law degree from Thessaloniki and a master's degree from Manchester and is a partner in Thrivest Holding, the majority owner of Credia Bank. He met Guilfoyle on the day she arrived in Athens. He flew her to Sofia on a private jet, accompanied her and Marafatsos to an after-dark meeting with Albania's prime minister in March and was photographed with President Trump at the Kennedy Center in December 2025 and with Eric Trump at Davos in January 2026. Eric Trump's spokeswoman said he "has no idea who that is". In February Exarchou dined with Guilfoyle and the Greek and Bulgarian energy ministers at Joe's Seafood near the White House, where guests were asked to describe how they knew the ambassador or toast her, and met Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff.

Aktor's lawyers said the company's involvement in the corridor began before any contact with Guilfoyle, after Exarchou attended a lunch with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in September 2025, and that Guilfoyle did not improperly promote its interests. They said Aktor is an "attractive candidate for furthering U.S. goals and interests" because, unlike some Greek competitors, it has no ties to Russian gas. Aktor estimates pre-tax income of €1.8 billion over 20 years from LNG deals signed or "in the pipeline". Its shares, listed in Athens, trade again on 28 September.

DEPA and Atlantic-SEE LNG Trade

DEPA Commercial, the Greek state-backed gas supplier, holds 40 per cent of Atlantic-SEE LNG Trade, and Aktor holds 60 per cent. Konstantinos Xifaras, DEPA Commercial's chief executive, chairs the venture, and Exarchou is its chief executive. The venture was launched on 7 November 2025 at the Zappeion in Athens, where it signed a 20-year agreement with Venture Global for 0.5 million tonnes a year of US LNG from 2030; the volume was doubled to one million tonnes on 11 June 2026. It signed a cooperation agreement at the same event with the Romanian grid operator Transgaz and the trader Nova Power & Gas covering up to 1.4 million tonnes a year, and a memorandum with Ukraine's Naftogaz lasting until 2050.

Atlantic-SEE signed four more regional agreements at the White House on 25 February 2026, with Albania's energy ministry, Bulgargaz, Naftogaz and the Bosnian buyers Aluminij Industries and M.T. Abraham Group. Volumes were not disclosed. DEPA has not commented on the investigation.

Venture Global

Venture Global, based in Virginia and led by chief executive Mike Sabel, exports LNG from its Calcasieu Pass and Plaquemines plants in Louisiana and is building CP2, which reached final investment decisions in July 2025 and March 2026. The company gave $1 million to President Trump's inaugural committee, and Sabel attended the April 2024 meeting at Mar-a-Lago where Trump asked oil and gas executives for $1 billion in campaign support. Venture Global holds about a quarter of the regasification capacity at Alexandroupolis. Sabel said the Greek deal was "a major point of entry for U.S. LNG into Central and Eastern Europe".

Venture Global has fought arbitrations with European customers that said it withheld cargoes during the start-up of Calcasieu Pass while selling them on the spot market. It won against Shell in August 2025 and Repsol around January 2026, lost a partial award to BP in October 2025 with BP claiming more than $1 billion, and settled with Edison. A spokeswoman said the company met Aktor and DEPA after meeting Guilfoyle about the corridor, has dealt with DEPA for years and was not a party to the Albania deal.

Argent LNG

Argent LNG, led by chairman and chief executive Jonathan Bass, is developing a 20 million tonne a year export plant at Port Fourchon, Louisiana, targeting 2029 to 2030. It holds memorandums with Turkey's Botas, Naftogaz and Transgaz. Asked whether Guilfoyle had promoted Argent, Bass said: "No. She has her favorites." Binnall said it was false that the embassy ignored Argent. Argent signed a memorandum with Albania in September 2026 on a terminal of up to five million tonnes a year.

Copelouzos, Gastrade and Metlen

The Copelouzos Group founded Gastrade, which operates the Alexandroupolis floating storage and regasification unit. The terminal began commercial operation on 1 October 2024 with capacity of 5.5 billion cubic metres a year; its shareholders include Copelouzos, GasLog, DEPA Commercial, the Bulgarian grid company Bulgartransgaz and the Greek grid company DESFA. Metlen, the industrial and energy group led by Evangelos Mytilineos, signed a memorandum with Shell on 25 February 2026 for 0.5 to one billion cubic metres of LNG a year from 2027 to 2031 through Revithoussa and Alexandroupolis. Marafatsos listed both groups as clients in pitches to Greek companies before Guilfoyle's swearing-in, according to a person who was pitched. Representatives of both said they have never retained him.

Doug Burgum, Chris Wright and the National Energy Dominance Council

President Trump created the National Energy Dominance Council by executive order on 14 February 2025 and named Interior Secretary Doug Burgum its chair. Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright attended the Partnership for Transatlantic Energy Cooperation conference in Athens on 6 and 7 November 2025, where ExxonMobil, Energean and Helleniq Energy signed for offshore exploration in Block 2 in the Ionian Sea and Atlantic-SEE signed its first deals. "Where you get energy from matters," Wright said. Burgum said: "There is no energy transition, there's only energy addition." Weeks after Guilfoyle's March visit to Tirana, the council emailed Albania's government with suggested partners for US gas purchases. "I don't think there were, let me say, many companies in that email," the Albanian energy minister, Enea Karakaçi, said. The only deal on offer used Venture Global supply.

Marco Rubio and the State Department

Marco Rubio, secretary of state, said Guilfoyle was an "incredibly effective advocate for the President's agenda" and that he and Trump "greatly value" her work. A US embassy official in Athens said she travelled to Bulgaria to increase sales of US LNG to European partners and cut European dependence on Russian gas, in full compliance with State Department guidance on official travel. Former State Department officials who worked on the corridor for years said they never met Aktor executives or heard the company proposed as a partner.

Robin Brooks

Robin Brooks served 21 years in the foreign service and was National Security Council director for the Balkans and Central Europe under President Joe Biden. She said an ambassador promoting a foreign company is "absolutely problematic" and that bringing a registered lobbyist to meetings with foreign officials raises the question of whether a meeting serves US interests or "some sort of private interest".

Jesse Binnall

Jesse Binnall heads Binnall Law Group in Alexandria, Virginia. He represented Michael Flynn with Sidney Powell, filed the Trump campaign's 2020 election contest in Nevada and has represented Trump in civil litigation over the attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021. He said Guilfoyle has "worked with companies across the energy sector" without focusing on one, that her official meetings are arranged through embassy channels and not through Marafatsos and that the account of the dinner was wrong.

Stavros Papastavrou and the Greek government

Stavros Papastavrou, a lawyer and long-time aide to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, became minister of environment and energy in March 2025 and represents Greece in the corridor talks. He attended the February dinner at Joe's Seafood with Exarchou and Guilfoyle. Pavlos Marinakis, the government spokesman, said Greek-US relations were "solid and constantly deepening" after meeting Guilfoyle shortly before the investigation appeared. Neither he, Papastavrou nor Mitsotakis had addressed the dinner account by 27 September.

Greek opposition parties

PASOK, the main opposition party, said through its officials Dimitris Manthos and Frangiskos Parasyris that the report raised "serious questions that cannot be answered with silence from the Greek government" and that the foreign and energy ministries were responsible for explaining it. SYRIZA said the revelations were "extremely serious", Guilfoyle's words amounted to a direct threat against Papastavrou and asked whether he had received the intervention. Alexis Charitsis of the New Left attacked the government's silence. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) said the silence was "guilty" and demanded the cancellation of the Vertical Corridor project and of Greece's strategic agreement with the United States.

Ilie Bolojan

Ilie Bolojan, a former mayor of Oradea and leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL), served as interim president in 2025 after Klaus Iohannis resigned and became prime minister on 23 June 2025 at the head of a coalition of the PNL, PSD, Save Romania Union (USR) and the Hungarian party UDMR. His government raised taxes and cut spending to reduce the largest budget deficit in the European Union. It ordered inspections at the nuclear operator Nuclearelectrica over about one billion lei spent on the NuScale small modular reactor project at Doicești. Bolojan did not grant Ivan's request for a government mandate for the US gas contract; Ivan said the answer was "We'll see". Bolojan has been caretaker prime minister since 5 May and has not commented on the dinner account.

Sorin Grindeanu and the PSD

Sorin Grindeanu, a former prime minister, leads the PSD, the largest party in Romania's parliament, which belongs to the European socialist group. He hosted Guilfoyle in Bucharest on 31 March. The PSD said in a statement: "Discussions with the US ambassador in Greece addressed aspects concerning the vertical gas corridor, a strategic energy route where Romania could play an important transit role. The other aspects mentioned are pure fabrications." Grindeanu said neither the United States, Russia nor "illuminati" had removed Bolojan and that 88 per cent of Romanians had.

Bogdan Ivan

Bogdan Ivan was the PSD energy minister until the party left government in April. He wrote to President Dan and to Bolojan in January 2026 asking for approval to buy US LNG and held a teleconference with the heads of Romgaz and Transgaz in February. He said he attended the 31 March dinner after speaking at a conference in Bucharest, that the talk covered technical aspects of the corridor and that no prices or delivery terms were discussed. He said the PSD had not needed anyone from the United States to tell it that Bolojan was "a catastrophe", that it consulted its 5,000 local elected officials before leaving government and that Transgaz could earn €250 million a year from transit. He said US LNG "comes at a competitive price" and accused Bolojan's allies of using the dinner account to hide a coming 40 per cent rise in Romanian gas prices. Romania's gas storage stood below 80 per cent in September 2026, against more than 91 per cent a year earlier, he said.

Florin Vlădică and President Nicușor Dan

Florin Vlădică, an adviser to President Nicușor Dan, attended the 31 March dinner. Dan, elected in May 2025, received Ivan's January letter on the gas contract and designated Siegfried Mureșan as prime minister on 17 September. Neither Vlădică nor the presidency had commented on the dinner account by 27 September.

George Simion and AUR

George Simion leads AUR, the second-largest party in parliament, and lost the second round of the May 2025 presidential election to Dan. His party co-signed the motion that brought down Bolojan. "I know her and I believe I am a good friend of the ambassador," he said of Guilfoyle. He said he had not discussed the government's removal with her and that the reported remarks were "invented or taken out of context". He said: "I do not accept external interference, even from partners." Petrișor Peiu, an AUR senator, said Guilfoyle "wrote not a single word" of the motion.

Dominic Fritz, Alexandru Dimitriu and USR

Dominic Fritz, leader of USR and former mayor of Timișoara, said in a video: "Mr Grindeanu, Mr Simion, is it true that you brought down the government on foreign orders?" He asked what was discussed at the 31 March dinner and said Grindeanu and Simion "must explain their dealings with wealthy Greeks for contracts disadvantaging Romanians". Alexandru Dimitriu, a USR deputy, filed criminal complaints for treason against Grindeanu, Simion and Ivan on 26 September. He wrote: "When the Romanian state is penetrated at the top and party presidents sell Romania's sovereignty and economic security, we face an act of treason punished by penal law."

Siegfried Mureșan

Siegfried Mureșan, a PNL member of the European Parliament, was designated prime minister on 17 September with the backing of the PNL, USR and UDMR, which hold about 170 seats, short of the 233 needed. His confirmation depends on the PSD, and the parliamentary vote is expected this week. Mureșan first declined to comment on the dinner account, then said the vote was the PSD's best opportunity to prove it had not been motivated by foreign interests.

Romgaz and Transgaz

Romgaz, majority-owned by the Romanian state, produces about half of Romania's gas and is developing the Neptun Deep field in the Black Sea with OMV Petrom, which is due to produce about eight billion cubic metres a year from 2027. The company said it was not pressured over the Atlantic-SEE proposal and rejected it on the grounds of rising domestic output, flat or falling EU demand and EU limits on fossil fuel use after 2035. Transgaz, the state grid operator, is party to the November 2025 cooperation agreement with Atlantic-SEE and would collect transit fees on gas moving north.

Iliana Iotova and Bulgargaz

Iliana Iotova, Bulgaria's president, received Guilfoyle in April, with Marafatsos beside the ambassador. Guilfoyle told people the Bulgarian government should deal with Aktor, and a person familiar with the talks said: "There is no doubt that this is kind of an official position of the U.S. government." Bulgargaz, the state gas supplier, signed an agreement with Atlantic-SEE at the White House in February 2026. Bulgartransgaz holds a stake in the Alexandroupolis terminal. Sofia had not commented officially on the investigation by 27 September.

Edi Rama, Enea Karakaçi and Albgaz

Edi Rama, Albania's prime minister since 2013, met Guilfoyle in Tirana in March on a visit that was not announced and included no embassy staff; she arrived after dark in a black SUV with Marafatsos and Exarchou and pitched energy cooperation. On 28 April Albania signed a $6 billion, 20-year agreement committing the state gas company Albgaz, led by Amarda Kapaj, to buy one billion cubic metres a year of Venture Global gas from 2030 through Aktor LNG USA, a subsidiary Aktor had registered weeks earlier. Aktor Energy USA signed a separate memorandum for an LNG hub and a 380 megawatt power plant at Vlora. Greek financial reporting said the Albania contract was signed outside Atlantic-SEE; Aktor's lawyers said Atlantic-SEE implements all the company's LNG deals. Albania has no gas network of its own, and the first volumes would move through Revithoussa and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline. Rama and the Albanian opposition had not commented on the investigation by 27 September.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia's parliament approved amendments on 15 April 2026 for the Southern Interconnection pipeline from Croatia, bringing in the US company AAFS Infrastructure and Energy. Aluminij Industries of Mostar holds a 20-year contract for 0.5 billion cubic metres a year of US LNG from 2030. The Sarajevo authorities say only Energoinvest may import gas. "The problem, I think, is not ours. It is the problem of the offtaker," Exarchou said. The EU ambassador to Bosnia wrote in April 2026 warning of the country's obligations under the Energy Community treaty.

Naftogaz and Ukraine

Naftogaz, Ukraine's state gas company, signed a memorandum with Atlantic-SEE in November 2025, and its chief executive Sergii Koretskyi said: "We are laying the foundations for a new era in transatlantic cooperation." Naftogaz said on 25 September that negotiations on future purchases from Atlantic-SEE had halted and gave no reason. On 21 September it secured three LNG cargoes from Poland's Orlen for the first quarter of 2027. "Amid the ongoing Russian attacks on our own production facilities, it is especially important for us to have reliable sources of gas supplies and diversified delivery routes," Serhii Fedorenko, its acting chair, said.

Europe

The EU's ban on Russian gas, given final approval on 26 January 2026, ended short-term LNG contracts on 25 April 2026 and short-term pipeline contracts on 17 June 2026. Long-term LNG contracts end on 1 January 2027 and long-term pipeline contracts by 1 November 2027 at the latest.

The EU pledged in its July 2025 trade deal with President Trump to buy $750 billion of US energy over three years, about $250 billion a year. EU imports of all energy from all countries totalled €336.7 billion in 2025. US gas supplied 56 per cent of EU LNG imports by value in 2025, and the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis projects about two thirds in 2026 and 80 per cent by 2028. "LNG has become the Achilles' heel of Europe's energy security strategy," the institute said in May. In June 2026 the EU took less than half of US LNG exports, a two-year low, as Asian buyers bid nearly $4 per million British thermal units more.

The Vertical Gas Corridor links grid operators in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Hungary with Slovakia or Austria, depending on the membership list, and was extended at Thessaloniki on 3 and 4 September 2026 to North Macedonia and Serbia. A Greece to North Macedonia interconnector is due by the end of 2027 and a North Macedonia to Serbia pipeline of three to six billion cubic metres a year by about the end of 2028. Serbia's Srbijagas has booked 0.3 billion cubic metres a year for 10 years. The corridor's "Route 1" product, a bundled capacity booking from the Greek-Bulgarian border to Ukraine, carries tariff discounts of 25 per cent in Greece and Bulgaria, 50 per cent in Romania and Moldova and 46 per cent in Ukraine.

TurkStream, the last route carrying Russian gas into the EU, delivered about 11.9 billion cubic metres from January to August 2026, 3.5 per cent more than a year earlier. Azerbaijan sent 16.7 billion cubic metres to Europe in the first four months of 2026, including to Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, North Macedonia and Greece. Norway supplied 52.1 per cent of EU pipeline gas imports in 2025. Qatar has about 17 per cent of its export capacity offline after Iranian strikes on two production trains, with repairs expected to take three to five years.

The European Commission and the Kremlin had made no statement on the investigation by 27 September.

Canada

Canada signed its first European LNG deal on 27 May 2026, when Germany's state-owned SEFE agreed to take one million tonnes a year for up to 20 years from Ksi Lisims LNG in British Columbia from the early 2030s. Katherina Reiche, Germany's economy minister, said it was "the expression of a strategic partnership". LNG Canada at Kitimat has shipped cargoes since mid-2025, all from the Pacific coast. Canada has no LNG export plant on the Atlantic, and officials said in August 2025 that the first shipments from the east coast could come in "as little as five years".

Prime Minister Mark Carney told the European Parliament on 17 September 2026: "Canada can contribute LNG and hydrogen at large scale to support Europe's energy security including by developing and leveraging new port infrastructure in the High North and on our East Coast." He said the partnership between Canada and Europe should mean "no one can dictate our choices" and protect against those who "can control our open markets, impair our sovereignty". Johann Wadephul, Germany's foreign minister, said on 27 September there was "of course" a market for more Canadian LNG. Canada and the EU signed a security and defence partnership in June 2025, and Canada joined the EU's SAFE defence procurement programme in December 2025.

Albania's 20-year contract with Aktor and Aluminij's 20-year contract in Bosnia both begin deliveries in 2030, and Atlantic-SEE's memorandum with Naftogaz lasts until 2050; Canada's first Atlantic shipments are at least five years away on its officials' estimate. No Canadian official had commented on the investigation by 27 September.

Earlier pressure on European governments

JD Vance, the US vice-president, told the Munich Security Conference on 14 February 2025 that Romania had cancelled its 2024 presidential election on "the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors". The US National Security Strategy published in December 2025 set the goal of "cultivating resistance" within European nations to the continent's current direction. On 7 November 2025 President Trump gave Hungary a one-year exemption from US sanctions on Russian oil and gas after meeting Viktor Orbán at the White House.

Update: US ambassador to Greece dined with politicians who joined the far right to topple Romania's government