On his Telegram channel Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska predicted that within a year and a half, the nations of the EU will have to return to purchasing Russian gas supplies.

The billionaire said that in the absence or cheap Russian gas supplies, the EU is presently seeing its lawmakers forced to to make “the only correct decision and change the main focus from the green transition to nuclear energy.”

Deripaska said, “However, this is not a quick process, meaning that it’s necessary to end the Ukraine conflict and agree on gas supplies with Gazprom.”

He added that the EU will not be negotiating the return of Russia gas supplies easily, as any agreement will have to begin with the bloc returning frozen assets to the Bank of Russia, compensating Russia for the sabotage attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, and repay Russian businesses for losses endured as a result of the sanctions the EU imposed on Russia over the war in Ukraine.

He said, “It’s serious compensation [the bloc will have] to pay for American adventures, but it’s still cheaper and more profitable than buying unnecessary weapons worth trillions of euros, and, in addition, losing such a sweet Russian market.”

The founder of the second-largest aluminum company in the world, Rusal, Deripaska added that the return of the EU to Russian gas supplies would not happen instantly, but that “cold winters will make the ‘Eastern Compromise’ acceptable” to the EU much faster, “in about a year and a half.”

He concluded, “Nuclear energy has returned after almost 20 years of useless debate with the so-called greens,” and that the return to Russian gas supplies would also prove inevitable.