Germany's finance minister says the country is no longer dependent on Russian energy

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said in an interview that his country is no longer dependent on Russian energy resources.

He said Germany had fully diversified its energy infrastructure and found other sources of imports since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, despite Russia cutting off gas taps to Europe.

"Yes, of course, Germany is still dependent on energy imports, but today it is no longer on imports from Russia, but on world markets," he said.

Germany used to be the biggest buyer of Russian gas: the country imported about half of its gas consumption and more than a third of all oil from Russia. However, after sanctions were imposed, Russia began to cut gas supplies to Germany, and last August supplies ceased completely. Earlier this year, Germany stopped importing Russian oil.

German authorities said it was necessary to reduce gas consumption and also took unpopular measures - resuming electricity production at coal-fired power plants that had been taken out of service or even shut down for environmental reasons. In addition, plans to shut down three nuclear power plants were postponed, and storage capacities for natural gas were increased.

Christian Lindner told the Davos Economic Forum that a new terminal for liquefied natural gas in Germany was built in about eight months. "This is just one example of a huge change in German policy," he said, adding that additional investments in energy infrastructure are planned.