Turkey’s role in Putin’s covert fuel sales to the EU

On a balmy spring day last May in southern Turkey just 60 kilometers from the Syrian border, a tanker the length of two football fields pulled into the Toros Ceyhan terminal ready to pick up fuel. Loaded with 150,000 barrels of gasoil — a fuel largely the same as diesel — the ship then departed on a three-day journey toward the Motor Oil Hellas refinery in southern Greece. Ostensibly, the fuel was Turkish; Athens insists it doesn’t accept Russian-labeled cargoes, in compliance with an EU prohibition. But new research and reporting shows the shipment was likely just that: Russian oil hidden with new markings.

That’s part of a much broader trend, according to research from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) think tanks, as well as independent reporting from POLITICO. Russian oil, it seems, is arriving en masse to the EU via Turkey. And it’s all legal. The scheme is possible because of a workaround in Brussels sanctions that allows “blended” fuels into the EU if they're labeled as non-Russian. It’s a lucrative loophole, with research showing it generated up to €3 billion for Moscow from three ports alone in the 12 months after the EU banned Russia’s fuels in February 2023. “Turkey has emerged as a strategic pit stop for Russian fuel products rerouted to the EU, generating hundreds of millions in tax revenues for the Kremlin's war chest,” said Martin Vladimirov, a senior energy analyst at CSD. The workaround illustrates the creative ways Russia is circumventing EU sanctions to protect its fossil fuel trade, which makes up almost half the Kremlin’s budget and offers a vital lifeline for its military campaign. Last year, POLITICO revealed Moscow won another €1 billion from a separate EU sanctions loophole in Bulgaria, while the G7’s signature measure to limit Moscow’s oil trades to $60 per barrel has largely failed. That ballooning trade comes as relations sour between the EU and Turkey over its Russian overtures — even as the country makes minor moves to align with U.S. sanctions. Since the war began, Turkey has offered to become a gas hub for Moscow, while slurping up large volumes of its oil. The latest revelations are prompting calls for action as EU countries discuss the bloc’s 14th Russia sanctions package.

“We must tighten our clamps and find ways to prevent the circumvention of sanctions,” Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told POLITICO. “Third countries, especially our NATO allies [like Turkey], should align with our sanctions as much as possible.”