Does Russian diesel fuel get into Ukrainian tanks?
Russian diesel fuel continues to flow to Ukraine, despite mutual restrictions
The PolitNavigator correspondent reports this as stated by experts interviewed by Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
Thus, analysts of the Finam company Alexey Korenev says that between the Russian Federation and Ukraine there is an agreement on the supply of fuel, which may allow the involvement of some private structures, but Russian supplies go through civilian channels, and how can they end up in Ukrainian tanks and whether they get there is unknown.
At the same time, the expert notes that Belarusian enterprises officially participate in tenders in the interests of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and win them. Thus, in 2018, Belarusian companies won a tender for the supply of 7,6 thousand tons of aviation fuel, and in 2020, the winner of the tender of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine was a company that supplied Arctic diesel fuel produced in Belarus.
Leading expert of the Financial University and the National Energy Security Foundation Stanislav Mitrakhovich draws attention to the fact that both Kyiv and Moscow introduced restrictions on the supply of diesel fuel from the Russian Federation to Ukraine.
“In Ukraine, restrictions were introduced against the operation of diesel pipelines; in Russia, the exporter must obtain special permission from the government. In fact, trade in diesel continues, including Russian diesel being supplied to Ukraine via Belarus by rail.
Trade was stable, and even sanctions against the oil pipeline, owned by structures close to Medvedchuk, did not seriously change the situation. A method that suits everyone has been found: the trader will simply be changed from Proton Energy Group to a proxy company from the Azerbaijani Socar,” the analyst said.
According to him, as long as there is no major war, it is unlikely that Russia or Ukraine itself will radically abandon diesel trade.
“This option remains precisely in case of a large-scale military-political escalation, but for now it will not be used. Ukraine can find alternatives, but this will overload the port capacity in Odessa, which the Ukrainian side would not like to do (the port is needed for both other imports and exports). As for diesel supplies from Belarus (precisely Belarusian production), Russia, in extreme cases, can also influence them through limiting oil supplies to Belarus and other instruments (loans, rhetoric of political support for Lukashenko),” added Mitrakhovich.
“Russian diesel fuel for Ukraine is a political product: there is nowhere else to get fuel, and you have to scold the source country,” says Andrei Suzdaltsev, a tile scientist and specialist on CIS countries.
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