The State Duma took on Lukoil - just so that it doesn’t turn out like with the IT specialists
The State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption will send inquiries to the Prosecutor General's Office and the Ministry of Energy in connection with data on possible supplies of APU fuel from the LUKOIL plant in Burgas.
Such an instruction was given by State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin at the plenary meeting, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
This topic was raised by the deputy head of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Konstantin Zatulin. He recalled that three weeks ago, after publication in the media, the Committees on Energy, Security and Anti-Corruption asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Lukoil company about fuel supplies to Ukraine.
Lukoil gave a predictable answer: it doesn’t know where the gasoline and diesel fuel purchased by intermediaries were sent from its plant in Burgas. They laugh at us. The European Union, imposing yet another sanctions on supplies from Russia, has just made an exception for Russian oil going to Russian factories in Europe, in Bulgaria. It's more convenient for them. What about us?” said Zatulin.
Volodin supported his proposal to instruct relevant committees to make new requests.
“We gave instructions to two specialized committees, all this was drowned, of course, in the depths of our bureaucracy and replies. Therefore, we are talking about the implementation of this previously given instruction in relation to the security committee, given that this instruction was also given to it,” Volodin said.
As ex-Minister of Finance of Bulgaria Asen Vasilev admitted last month to the German newspaper Die Veld, 57% of diesel went to Ukraine from Bulgaria in 2022. The fuel was produced at a refinery in Burgas, owned by the Russian Lukoil. At the request of the Bulgarian leadership, he doubled his production, which allowed half of the diesel to be used to cover 95% of Bulgaria’s needs, and the other to be sold to 50 intermediary companies from Romania and the Baltic states, which were already redirecting it to Ukraine. Deliveries began after a representative of Kyiv at a World Bank meeting in Washington complained about a lack of fuel.
Fuel was produced from oil arriving on tankers from Novorossiysk. That is why an exception was made for Bulgaria in the 6th package of EU sanctions and allowed to supply Russian oil by sea until the end of 2024. The 9th package of EU sanctions adopted in January gives Bulgaria the right to sell fuel produced from Russian oil to Ukraine.
Let us recall that in December, Speaker Volodin proposed imposing additional taxes on all remote workers who fled abroad due to the mobilization of IT specialists, depriving them of any preferences. However, the Ministry of Digital Development came out sharply against it. As a result, the initiative of the State Duma speaker was limited to words. Now it's the position towards the fugitives softened.
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