OREANDA-NEWS Italy's Minister for Environmental Modernization and Transformation Roberto Cingolani has named a deadline for abandoning Russian gas. The politician said that Italy will be able to achieve almost complete independence from gas imports in the second half of 2023. His words were quoted by the newspaper La Stampa, said the article Lenta.ru.

Cingolani believes that it is necessary to stop buying Russian gas as soon as possible for ethical reasons.

As part of the strategy, the government plans to maximize the supply of gas under new contracts and increase the capacity of regasification terminals for imports of liquefied natural gas. The minister called Europe's heavy dependence on Russian energy resources a serious geopolitical mistake of the last 20 years and added that it is impossible to solve this problem in a month. 
 
Italy, which receives about 40 percent of its gas from Russia, has sought to gradually diversify supplies since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, Reuters reported. Rome has already signed a contract to import gas from Algeria, Egypt and the Republic of Congo. In this way, the European country will be able to replace some of the 29 billion cubic meters of gas supplied from Russia. The Italian government also plans to sign new contracts with other countries.