Where Data Tells the Story
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China followed by India have been the two biggest wartime buyers of Russian fossil fuels, here defined as any oil, coal or gas purchased after Jan. 1, 2023. Turkey was the third-biggest buyer while the European Union came fourth. The economic bloc has attempted to wean itself off its dependency on Russian fossil fuels but has struggled to do so after 2022, especially when it comes to natural gas.
Timelines published by CREA show that EU reductions in purchases were very significant during the first year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but have struggled to make meaningful progress since. At the same time, China, India and Turkey upped their buying in 2022 as Russian oil could be had at reduced rates. Especially fossil fuel flows to India rose by a lot during that year, while Turkish purchases also soared recently. The biggest EU buyers were Hungary, Slovakia, France and Belgium.
Many rounds of sanctions were not enough to diminish Russian fossil fuel revenues due to a mix of global dependency on the major energy exporter and opportunism by non-alligned nations. After different types of sanctions have been tried out by Western alliances to curb Russia's export income (often unsuccessfully), U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham on Sunday said that steep tariffs could be another option to pressure countries to abstain from buying Russian oil. On Sunday, the lawmaker from the state of South Carolina said on Fox News directed towards India, China and Brazil: "We're going to crush your economy." U.S. President Donald Trump had already mentioned this scenario last week on the ocassion of a visit by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, saying that "secondary tariffs" of 100 percent would come into effect for countries trading with Russia if no peace deal was reached within 50 days with Ukraine. A similar threat was leveled towards buyers of Venezuelan oil in March, but tariffs threatened only stood at 25 percent then.