Britain has reportedly bought an estimated $2.15 billion worth of products made from Russian crude from refineries in India and Türkiye
Britain has effectively been evading its own ban on Russian oil by using a loophole to import millions of barrels of the sanctioned commodity in the form of fuel processed in third countries, Politico reported on Tuesday.
Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, UK authorities have banned the import of Russian crude and oil products, along with related maritime transportation, insurance, and financing. Britain has also imposed asset freezes on Russian oil majors, including Rosneft and Lukoil, and joined the enforcement of the G7 price cap on Russian crude.
Moscow maintains that the “unprecedented number of sanctions” introduced by the West against the Russian oil sector in an effort to curb the country’s energy revenues “has had no effect.”
The UK, however, imported some £4 billion ($5.36 billion) of jet fuel and other petroleum products refined in India and Türkiye between 2022 and the end of 2025, according to a recent report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), as cited by Politico. The study estimated that at least £1.6 billion ($2.15 billion) worth of the products imported from Indian and Turkish refineries would have been made with Russian oil.
India and Türkiye, which along with China have been ranked among the top buyers of Russian oil after Western nations imposed bans, are refining sanctioned crude into jet fuel and diesel and then re-selling it to countries across the world, analysts noted.
“Roughly one in six jet fuel shipments entering the UK comes from refineries running on Russian crude,” Isaac Levi, an analyst at CREA, told Politico.
Industry experts have long warned that sanctions on refined fuels are hard to enforce because the origin of the crude cannot be traced once processed. Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden said in 2022 that no system exists to determine whether such products originate from Russian oil.
Earlier this month, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced plans to continue efforts to curb Moscow’s energy revenues in 2026, including by targeting oil traders and a ‘shadow fleet’ that he claimed is used to transport Russian crude.
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