Russia imports record fuel from India as Ukraine strikes hit refineries

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Russia imported a record 172,000 tonnes of oil products in August, including gasoline refined from Russian crude at a refinery in India that is partly owned by Russia’s Rosneft, as Ukrainian drone strikes disrupted Moscow’s domestic refining capacity, according to a report by the CREA. File | Photo Credit: Reuters

Russia imported a record 172,000 tonnes of oil products in August, including gasoline refined from Russian crude at a refinery in India that is partly owned by Russia's Rosneft, as Ukrainian drone strikes disrupted Moscow's domestic refining capacity, according to a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

India supplied 70% of Russia's oil product imports in August, including 120,000 tonnes of gasoline worth 78 million euros, CREA said in its monthly analysis of Russian fossil fuel exports and sanctions. The volume of Russian fuel imports was more than seven times the previous monthly record and three times the total imported during all of 2025.

All of the gasoline from India was loaded at the Vadinar refinery and sold by EU-sanctioned Nayara Energy to Rosneft, CREA said. Rosneft owns 49.13% of Nayara Energy, while Vadinar sourced all of its crude from Russia during the first eight months of 2026, compared with 81% for all of 2025, according to the report.

"Russia is therefore paying a refinery that it partly owns to process its own crude into fuel it can no longer produce domestically, before shipping it back halfway around the world," CREA said.

The shipments underscore the impact of a sustained Ukrainian drone campaign against Russia's oil refineries and energy infrastructure, which has reduced domestic fuel production and contributed to shortages, according to CREA.

Each cargo of gasoline exported from Vadinar to Russia was transferred between vessels in a ship-to-ship operation off Egypt before being unloaded at Russia's Arctic port of Beloe More, the report said. All the vessels involved were sanctioned tankers, while four of the six had previously operated under false flags, CREA said.

Russia's gasoline imports surged even as the country, historically one of the world's largest exporters of refined petroleum products, faced declining exports.