China, EU are top buy­ers of Rus­sian fossil fuel; India’s share at 16.26%

NEW DELHI : Russia’s cumulative earnings from exporting fossil fuels since the war in Ukraine (February 24, 2022) surpassed $1 trillion at the beginning of the 2026 calendar year. China and the European Union (EU) accounted for more than half the share, followed by India.

According to data from the Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), Russia’s earnings from the export of crude oil, natural gas and coal hit €1 trillion, or roughly $1.17 trillion at the current exchange rate, between February 24, 2022 and January 3, 2026.

Oil (including crude oil and oil products) and fossil gas (either pipelined gas or LNG shipments) represent the vast majority of this revenue, it added.

The EU was Rus­sia’s second largest fossil fuel trad­ing part­ner, account­ing for 21.81 per cent, or $255.21 bil­lion, with $123.23 bil­lion going to oil, $126.54 bil­lion to LNG and $4.1 bil­lion to coal. Together, China and EU accoun­ted for more than 51 per cent of Rus­sia’s fossil fuel export earn­ings.

India, which is the largest buyer of Rus­sia’s seaborne crude oil, ran up a bill of more than $190 bil­lion, account­ing for 16.26 per cent of Rus­sia’s cumu­lat­ive earn­ings from fossil fuel export.

The world’s third largest energy con­sumer pro­cured crude oil worth over $168 bil­lion and coal worth over $21 bil­lion between Feb­ru­ary 24, 2022, and Janu­ary 3, 2026.

“The trade flour­ishes because of Rus­sia’s abil­ity to expand mar­kets for its oil, grow its age­ing, dan­ger­ous shadow fleet, and fun­nel large volumes of unsanc­tioned gas to Ukraine’s allies in the EU. EU imports con­sist of one­fifth of this one tril­lion. Rus­sian gas is the major share of it,” CREA emphas­ised.

TRUMP’S EXEMPTION

Rus­sian oil flow to the EU goes mainly to Hun­gary and Slov­akia. US Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump’s exemp­tion for Hun­gary means that €1 bil­lion will con­tinue to flow into the Krem­lin war chest, it added. “Sanc­tion­ing coun­tries also con­tinue to boost Rus­sian rev­en­ues by allow­ing products refined from Rus­sian crude to con­tinue enter­ing their shores. Over 500 ‘shadow’ tankers con­tinue to carry Rus­sian oil glob­ally, often trans­it­ing key check­points and straits while not hav­ing any known and recog­nised insur­ance,” the think tank poin­ted out.

DISCOUNT ON URALS

Last month, CREA said that State­run refiners increased Rus­sian crude oil pur­chases in Novem­ber 2025, as Urals crude is dis­coun­ted heav­ily fol­low­ing the US sanc­tions.

Dis­count on Urals increased by 4 per cent in Novem­ber, aver­aging $6.66 per bar­rel below Brent, com­pared to Octo­ber ($4.92) and Septem­ber ($5.13). The aver­age Urals price fell 6 per cent month­on­month to $55 per bar­rel (Novem­ber), remain­ing above the new price cap of $47.6, it added.