Financing Putin’s war: Fossil fuel imports from Russia during the invasion of Ukraine

Global reliance on burning fossil fuels perpetuates conflict and energy insecurity as well as air pollution and climate change.

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) is identifying fossil fuel exports from Russia and effective economic and financial countermeasures against Russia to help end the Russian military’s unprovoked and unjustified attack against the sovereign nation of Ukraine, which CREA absolutely condemns as a violation of the fundamental values of human wellbeing, safety, and dignity that CREA seeks to advance.

Read our Statement of Support for Ukraine and see below to find CREA’s data, analyses, and policy recommendations on Russian fossil fuel exports.

Weekly snapshots

Weekly snapshot ‑ Russian fossil fuels 27 November to 3 December 2023

8 December 2023

Weekly snapshot ‑ Russian fossil fuels 20 to 26 November 2023

1 December 2023

More news

October 2023 — Monthly analysis on Russian fossil fuel exports and sanctions

23 November 2023

September 2023 — Monthly analysis on Russian fossil fuel exports and sanctions

18 October 2023

Data products

Fossil fuel exports are a key enabler of Russia’s military buildup and brutal aggression against Ukraine. The Russian Energy Export Tracker is a project developed by CREA to bring light to details of energy exports from Russia and how they changed after the invasion of Ukraine. We do that by tracking detailed ship movements and pipeline flows in as much detail as possible.

Our aim is to inform politicians, policymakers, media and other stakeholders about the buyers and the sheer amount of money flowing to Russia selling its fossil fuels. By providing more transparency into the topic, we engage all stakeholders to push for actions that would block financial flows supplying the Russian war campaign as soon as possible.

Other Data products

Russia sanction tracker

Tracking the dynamics of the sanctions on Russian fossil fuels.

Russia gas flaring

Track gas flaring intensity along Russian gas fields and infrastructure.

Reports

These reports provide regular assessments of Russia’s fossil fuel exports, providing a detailed picture of the importing countries, ports and companies, as well as trends in the volume of exports and imports. Read more on the methodology.

One year of sanctions: Russia’s oil export revenues cut by EUR 34 bn

One year ago, as the USD 60 per barrel price cap and import ban on Russian crude came into effect

5 December 2023

Shedding light on “shadow” tankers

Who transports Russia’s oil 18 months into the invasion? Since the first sanctions on Russian oil came into effect in

25 September 2023

Renewables helped the EU save 14% of gas in underground gas storages

Increases in renewable electricity generation helped EU countries to boost underground gas storage levels by 14 percentage points from the

29 May 2023

Russia’s oil revenue rebounds in March–April as price cap enforcement and review are failing

Russia’s oil revenues have rebounded in March–April from levels reached in January–February 2023, rising to the highest level since November,

23 May 2023

The Laundromat: How the price cap coalition whitewashes Russian oil in third countries

Western countries that have largely banned the imports of oil from Russia imported EUR 42 billion worth of oil products

19 April 2023

One year on, who is funding Russia’s war in Ukraine?

Russia’s illegal and brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine started one year ago. Russia’s fossil fuel revenues have continued to enable

24 February 2023

EU oil ban and price cap are costing Russia EUR 160 mn/day, but further measures can multiply the impact

As the sanctions and the costs of the invasion of Ukraine take their toll on Russia’s economy, the country is

11 January 2023

Financing Putin’s war: Fossil fuel exports from Russia in the first six months of the invasion of Ukraine

To shed light on who purchases Russiaʼs oil, gas and coal, and how the volume and value of imports have changed since the start of the invasion, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air has compiled a detailed dataset of pipeline and seaborne trade in Russian fossil fuels.

6 September 2022

Financing Putin’s war: Fossil fuel imports from Russia in the first 100 days of the invasion

To shed light on who purchases Russia’s oil, gas and coal, and how the volume and value of imports have changed since the start of the invasion, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air has compiled a detailed dataset of pipeline and seaborne trade in Russian fossil fuels.

12 June 2022

Shocked into action

In response to Russia’s aggression and soaring fossil prices, most EU Member States have announced significant increases in renewables deployment,

2 June 2022

Financing Putin’s war on Europe: Fossil fuel imports from Russia in the first two months of the invasion

Corrected version: we detected errors in our data on pipeline gas imports into the EU; these have been corrected. We

27 April 2022

Policy recommendations

CREA encourages all governments and corporate buyers of Russian fossil fuels to 

• end all purchases, in order to strengthen the effect of the sanctions and help end the war and the crimes against humanity committed by the Russian military.
• end transshipments of Russian fossil fuels to third parties.
• during any wind-down or transition period, or if a full ban isn’t plausible, institute tariffs on imports from Russia. Sufficiently high tariffs would encourage buyers not to purchase from Russia whenever possible, and curb the price paid to Russian suppliers on spot markets.
• create a plan to replace Russian fossil fuels with clean (non-fossil) energy, energy efficiency and energy savings measures as soon as possible. This will be far more impactful than just re-arranging the global trade flows of fossil fuels, and will have far greater economic, health and national security benefits.