Despite sanctions, Russia sells its crude oil to Turkey, which exports it to the EU, generating billions of dollars in profit for Russia.
This was reported by the CFTS portal, citing Hromadske Radio.
"Public activists and the media fighting against the export of hydrocarbons from Russia have been talking about this scheme for a long time. In fact, it is a re-export. Turkey buys Russian crude oil and Europe buys what is now considered Turkish crude oil from Turkey. This is how they have packaged this complex scheme. They just change the label, change the country of origin. This allows them to evade sanctions," said energy expert Maksym Hardus.
According to him, an investigation was conducted to highlight this story. "The goal is to ensure that politicians can no longer turn a blind eye to the fact that they allegedly do not know that there are Russian oil products in Europe that are labeled as Turkish. Everyone knows Turkey does not produce crude oil. It is an importer of crude oil. So, everyone is just pretending that nothing is happening," the expert said.
Russia has been using Turkey to circumvent sanctions for a long time, Hardus said. According to him, before the imposition of formal sanctions, some countries made independent statements that they would stop buying crude oil and oil products from Russia because of its violations of international law.
"Before the full embargo, there was a creeping embargo and political rejection of oil products from Russia. Schemes to circumvent individual sanctions began in 2022. After the European Union finally imposed a formal embargo, there was a need to find larger-scale circumvention schemes," the expert said.
According to him, India is Moscow's second largest "customer" after China, and India continues to buy crude oil from Russia, but with a certain degree of variability.
"Recently, there have been reports that India is again accepting crude oil exported from Russia. India's position on Russian oil is quite ambivalent. It is neither friendship nor enmity with Russia. It is an advantage. If one month, the price is favorable for them, they buy. If the next month, for example, they are not offered discounts and the Americans come up with new sanctions, then they will not buy Russian crude and will buy from the Persian Gulf. The graph for their purchases of Russian crude oil is sinusoidal," Hardus said.
