Did you know that Europe is funding the Russian military in its long-drawn war? Well, indirectly anyway.
While Ukraine is heavily dependent on aid from its western allies, Russia is financing its full-scale invasion through the billions it earns from fossil fuel exports. And Moscow's major clients? The very same western nations.
In the wake of Russia's February 2022 invasion, Ukraine's allies imposed sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons. While the US and the UK banned Russian oil and gas, the EU banned Russian seaborne crude imports, not gas.
But despite the sanctions, between February 2022 and February 2025, Russia made more than $939 billion in revenue from fossil fuel exports to the West. Over $200 billion of that was paid by EU member states.
That's according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and the BBC. During the same time, aid allocated to Ukraine stood at $309 billion.
That means Russia made more than 3 times the money through hydrocarbon exports to Ukraine’s Western allies than Ukraine received in aid allocated by them.
Wondering how that’s possible?
Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, said some members of the alliance fear an escalation in the conflict and hence have not imposed "the strongest sanctions" on Russian oil and gas. She also argued, buying oil from Moscow is "cheaper in the short term".
In addition to direct sales, the countries have been unable to — or more accurately, unwilling to — close what is known as "the refining loophole". Basically, some of the oil exported by Russia ends up in the West after being processed into fuel products in third countries. Sometimes it gets diluted with crude from other countries.
Experts say that it's entirely legal and that everyone's aware of it, but not doing much about it. Additionally, Russia's "shadow fleet" of tankers have been quite successful in dodging the sanctions.
Obviously this is a complicated situation that is inextricably tied into the fate of many nations across the globe. But right now, the West’s unquenchable thirst for fuel is curtailing its ability to cut off funding to Russia's war.
