How the West is helping Russia to fund its war on Ukraine

BBC News

5 days ago

Russia has continued to make billions from fossil fuel exports to the West, data shows, helping to finance its full-scale invasion of Ukraine – now in its fourth year.Since the start of that invasion in February 2022, Russia has made more than three times as much money by exporting hydrocarbons than Ukraine has received in aid allocated by its allies.Data analysed by the BBC show that Ukraine's Western allies have paid Russia more for its hydrocarbons than they have given Ukraine in aid.Campaigners say governments in Europe and North America need to do more to stop Russian oil and gas from fuelling the war with Ukraine.
How much is Russia still making?
Proceeds made from selling oil and gas are key to keeping Russia's war machine going.Oil and gas account for almost a third of Russia's state revenue and more than 60% of its exports.In the wake of the February 2022 invasion, Ukraine's allies imposed sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons. The US and UK banned Russian oil and gas, while the EU banned Russian seaborne crude imports, but not gas.Despite this, by 29 May, Russia had made more than €883bn ($973bn; £740bn) in revenue from fossil fuel exports since the start of the full-scale invasion, including €228bn from the sanctioning countries, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).The lion's share of that amount, €209bn, came from EU member states.EU states continued importing pipeline gas directly from Russia until Ukraine cut the transit in January 2025, and Russian crude oil is still piped to Hungary and Slovakia.Russian gas is still piped to Europe in increasing quantities via Turkey: CREA's data shows that its volume rose by 26.77% in January and February 2025 over the same period in 2024.Hungary and Slovakia are also still receiving Russian pipeline gas via Turkey.
Despite the West's efforts, in 2024 Russian revenues from fossil fuels fell by a mere 5% compared with 2023, along with a similar 6% drop in the volumes of exports, according to CREA. Last year also saw a 6% increase in Russian revenues from crude oil exports, and a 9% year-on-year increase in revenues from pipeline gas.Russian estimates say gas exports to Europe rose by up to 20% in 2024, with liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports reaching record levels. Currently, half of Russia's LNG exports go the EU, CREA says.The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, says the alliance has not imposed "the strongest sanctions" on Russian oil and gas because some member states fear an escalation in the conflict and because buying them is "cheaper in the short term".LNG imports have not been included in the latest, 17th package of sanctions on Russia approved by the EU, but it has adopted a road map towards ending all Russian gas imports by the end of 2027.Data shows that money made by Russia from selling fossil fuels has consistently surpassed the amount of aid Ukraine receives from its allies.The thirst for fuel can get in the way of the West's efforts to limit Russia's ability to fund its war.Mai Rosner, a senior campaigner from the pressure group Global Witness, says many Western policymakers fear that cutting imports of Russian fuels will lead to higher energy prices."There's no real desire in many governments to actually limit Russia's ability to produce and sell oil. There is way too much fear about what that would mean for global energy markets. There's a line drawn under where energy markets would be too undermined or too thrown off kilter," she told the BBC.
'Refining loophole'
In addition to direct sales, some of the oil exported by Russia ends up in the West after being processed into fuel products in third countries via what is known as "the refining loophole". Sometimes it gets diluted with crude from other countries, too.CREA says it has identified three "laundromat refineries" in Turkey and three in India processing Russian crude and selling the resulting fuel on to sanctioning countries. It says they have used €6.1bn worth of Russian crude to make products for sanctioning countries.India's petroleum ministry criticised CREA's report as "a deceptive effort to tarnish India's image".
"[These countries] know that sanctioning countries are willing to accept this. This is a loophole. It's entirely legal. Everyone's aware of it, but nobody is doing much to actually tackle it in a big way," says Vaibhav Raghunandan, an analyst at CREA.Campaigners and experts argue that Western governments have the tools and means available to stem the flow of oil and gas revenue into the Kremlin's coffers. According to former Russian deputy energy minister Vladimir Milov, who is now a diehard opponent of Vladimir Putin, sanctions imposed on trade in Russian hydrocarbons should be better enforced - particularly the oil price cap adopted by the G7 group of nations, which Mr Milov says "is not working".He is fearful, though, that the US government shake-up launched by President Donald Trump will hamper agencies such as the US Treasury or the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which are key for sanctions enforcement.Another avenue is continued pressure on Russia's "shadow fleet" of tankers involved in dodging the sanctions."That is a complex surgery operation. You need to periodically release batches of new sanctioned vessels, shell companies, traders, insurers etc. every several weeks," Mr Milov says. According to him, this is an area where Western governments have been much more effective, particularly with the introduction of new sanctions by Joe Biden's outgoing administration in January 2025.Mai says that banning Russian LNG exports to Europe and closing the refining loophole in Western jurisdictions would be "important steps in finishing the decoupling of the West from Russian hydrocarbons".According to Mr Raghunandan from CREA, it would be relatively easy for the EU to give up Russian LNG imports."Fifty percent of their LNG exports are directed towards the European Union, and only 5% of the EU's total [LNG] gas consumption in 2024 was from Russia. So if the EU decides to completely cut off Russian gas, it's going to hurt Russia way more then it's going to hurt consumers in the European Union," he told the BBC.
Trump's oil-price plan to end war
Experts interviewed by the BBC have dismissed Donald Trump's idea that the war with Ukraine will end if Opec brings oil prices down."People in Moscow are laughing at this idea, because the party which will suffer the most… is the American shale oil industry, the least cost-competitive oil industry in the world," Mr Milov told the BBC.Mr Raghunandan says that Russia's cost of producing crude is also lower than in Opec countries like Saudi Arabia, so they would be hurt by lower oil prices before Russia."There is no way that Saudi Arabia is going to agree to that. This has been tried before. This has led to conflict between Saudi Arabia and the US," he says.Ms Rosner says there are both moral and practical issues with the West buying Russian hydrocarbons while supporting Ukraine."We now have a situation in which we are funding the aggressor in a war that we're condemning and also funding the resistance to the war," she says. "This dependence on fossil fuels means that we are really at the whims of energy markets, global energy producers and hostile dictators."