As of: February 21, 2024, 4:47 a.m
By: Amy Walker
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Despite Western sanctions, Putin has made more money from oil than ever before.
But the war still takes a toll on finances.
Moscow – Despite sanctions and high military spending, the Kremlin has more money in its treasury than ever.
This is reported by the US news channel
CNN
, citing an analysis by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).
Accordingly, the high income is due to increased trade with India, which has brought the Kremlin $37 million from crude oil sales.
India has purchased 13 times more oil than before the outbreak of the Ukraine war almost three years ago.
India wants to mediate in the Ukraine war
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has defended the purchase of Russian oil.
“Russia has never violated our interests,” Jaishankar told
Handelsblatt
at the weekend.
India’s current relationship with Moscow is based on the “stable and always very friendly relationship with Russia”.
Theoretically, New Delhi could also play a mediating role in the Ukraine war, said Jaishankar.
Bilateral trade between the two countries increased sharply last year.
Jaishankar sees no alternative to buying Russian crude oil and gas: European countries have bought oil and gas from the Middle East that went to Asia before the Russian invasion at higher prices, he said.
The Indian purchases even stabilized world market prices: “If no one had bought the crude oil from Russia and everyone had bought the crude oil from other countries, the prices on the energy market would have shot up even further.”
Trade with India is not subject to sanctions, but according to several reports it is used to divert oil to countries such as the USA via a “shadow fleet”.
Since December 2022, Russian oil has been subject to a price cap of 60 dollars per barrel (55 euros) - but Russia is systematically circumventing this requirement by means of a fleet of ships that transport the oil on the high seas in order to then sell it at higher prices using forged documents sell.
Satellite images from various media, including
CNN
, have been able to demonstrate this process again and again.
Russia circumvents sanctions using several methods
According to researchers at the Kyiv School of Economics, recent data suggests that more than 99 percent of Russian crude oil exported by sea was sold at a price of more than $60 a barrel in October.
Another trick that should bring Vladimir Putin billions: The crude oil that India buys is processed in Indian refineries - and then sold to the West as supposedly Indian oil.
As a result, the Kremlin may have made significantly more money from the oil trade than is officially known.
According to
CNN,
oil worth a billion dollars has come from Russia to the USA using these methods; if you add other Western countries, the figure comes to 9.1 billion dollars, according to CREA.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has a bulging state coffers despite sanctions.
© Sergei Karpukhin /dpa
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Accordingly, the EU wants to tighten things up, especially when it comes to documenting and monitoring oil trade.
And the USA also announced in January that it would take tougher action against sanctions violators.
“Anyone who violates the price cap on oil must face consequences,” said US Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo during a visit to Berlin, where he wanted to meet, among others, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck and Head of the Chancellery Wolfgang Schmidt.
Companies that would help the Kremlin must be stopped.
Despite higher income, experts emphasize that Moscow is not necessarily doing well.
CNN
quotes an economist at the RAND think tank, Howard Shatz, who points out that the Kremlin still failed to produce a balanced budget in 2023.
“Despite the higher revenues, the budget deficit was the third highest ever, followed by 2022 and 2020,” Shatz said.
Russia also had to increase taxes to finance the war.
With material from AFP