Russia is entering its third year of war in Ukraine with an unprecedented amount of cash in government coffers, bolstered by a record $37 billion of crude oil sales to India last year, according to new analysis, which concludes that some of the crude was refined by India and then exported to the United States as oil products worth more than $1 billion.
This flow of payments, ultimately to Moscow’s benefit, comes from India increasing its purchases of Russian crude by over 13 times its pre-war amounts, according to the analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), exclusively shared with CNN.
Windward, a maritime artificial intelligence company, analyzed global shipping movements for CNN and detected 588 direct voyages by oil tankers from Russia to India last year.
Tannenbaum at Pole Star Global said the firm “suspected” that the primary motive for these transfers was to evade sanctions as “almost all these vessels” had a connection to the US or the European Union, and would be subject to the price cap.
Ami Daniel, CEO of Windward, made a similar assessment: “That is part of a Russian methodical, systemic effort to just make everything much more complicated.” He described the incentive for Russia and oil traders to circumvent sanctions as “gigantic,” saying: “You really needed to have a reason to transfer 60-plus million barrels in the middle of the ocean and export them to India because it’s much easier not to do that – to sail directly.”
The shadow fleet has enabled Russia to create a parallel shipping structure that can weather the changing tactics and focus of Western sanctions, with hundreds of tankers of opaque ownership, using complex routes.
The analysis by the CREA estimated the US was the biggest buyer of refined products from India made from Russian crude last year, worth $1.3 billion between early December 2022, when the price cap was introduced, and the end of 2023.
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This flow of payments, ultimately to Moscow’s benefit, comes from India increasing its purchases of Russian crude by over 13 times its pre-war amounts, according to the analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), exclusively shared with CNN.
Windward, a maritime artificial intelligence company, analyzed global shipping movements for CNN and detected 588 direct voyages by oil tankers from Russia to India last year.
Tannenbaum at Pole Star Global said the firm “suspected” that the primary motive for these transfers was to evade sanctions as “almost all these vessels” had a connection to the US or the European Union, and would be subject to the price cap.
Ami Daniel, CEO of Windward, made a similar assessment: “That is part of a Russian methodical, systemic effort to just make everything much more complicated.” He described the incentive for Russia and oil traders to circumvent sanctions as “gigantic,” saying: “You really needed to have a reason to transfer 60-plus million barrels in the middle of the ocean and export them to India because it’s much easier not to do that – to sail directly.”
The shadow fleet has enabled Russia to create a parallel shipping structure that can weather the changing tactics and focus of Western sanctions, with hundreds of tankers of opaque ownership, using complex routes.
The analysis by the CREA estimated the US was the biggest buyer of refined products from India made from Russian crude last year, worth $1.3 billion between early December 2022, when the price cap was introduced, and the end of 2023.
The original article contains 1,424 words, the summary contains 258 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!