European countries are still buying massive amounts of Russian oil through a laundromat of five middleman nations.
April 25, 2026
Original Paper
Oil Laundering How did Russian Oil Circumvent the European Union’s Embargo?
SSRN · 6643467
The Takeaway
Russian oil circumvents EU embargos by being shipped to countries like China, India, and Turkey. These nations refine the crude into products like gasoline and jet fuel before exporting it back to the European market. Because the oil has been processed elsewhere, it is legally considered a product of the middleman nation. This systemic loophole means the embargo is largely a performance that fails to stop the flow of Russian energy wealth. The EU is effectively funding a conflict while claiming to sanction it. Sanctions on raw materials are easy to evade as long as the global refining network remains open.
From the abstract
The European Union’s embargo on Russian crude and refined oil from 2022 may have unintentionally enabled the indirect entry of Russian oil into sanctioning EU markets through third-country refining, a process commonly described as “oil laundering.” To provide formal evidence of this mechanism, this paper examines whether Russian crude oil was rerouted to non-sanctioning countries—specifically China, India, Turkey, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates—and whether these “laundromat” countries s