Russia used to export a lot of refined products, so they loose the profits of doing the refining.

They liquidated a bunch of their industrial refining capacity in the late 90s/early 00s thanks to Yeltsin’s implementation of Shock Doctrine economic reforms.

My home town of Houston hosts a bunch of Soviet made refinery equipment bought for pennies on the dollar from overseas.

That’s got nothing to do with current EU sanctions. If anything, Russian reinvestment in heavy industry has been one of the brighter spots of the Putin Regime and a major source of his popularity.

Last year 17.5% of EUs LNG imports came from Russia. There is no reason for doing that more then three years after the full scale invasion.

There’s a strong economic reason to obtain gas from the lowest cost provider. LNGs floated in from the US can’t meet demand and cost 10x Russia rates at market.

Combine that with the US tariffing of trade deficits and insourcing of energy consumption for AI development and you’ve left Europe with no other option for gas power.

EU purchases of laundered Russian oil worth an estimated €1.1 billion to the Kremlin in 2023

The fuel is entering through a not-so-small loophole left in EU sanctions which allows products refined from Russian oil to flow into the bloc. This has resulted in a ‘laundromat’ where refineries in countries like India and Turkey, can import discounted Russian crude, refine it into products like diesel, jet fuel, or gasoline, and legally sell the refined oil to embargoing jurisdictions like the EU.

Has this meaningfully changed? Because I’m finding a lot of news about EU states increasing their trade with Turkyie and it’s neighbors, without a hard look at where this glut of reserve is coming from.