Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) reveals that the European Union’s embargo on the purchase, import and transfer of Russian crude oil at the end of 2022 has had almost no impact on the total volume of Russian oil exports. As the following chart shows, this is due to a number of other countries filling in the vacuum, largely driven by China and India, which increased their imports by 21 percent and 111 percent, respectively. Turkey, as well as a number of countries in both Africa and the Middle East, also imported more Russian oil.
Last year, EU member states imposed sanctions on Russia’s energy sector in response to the war in Ukraine. While this included an embargo on oil, a number of EU states that are particularly dependent on Russia's supplies were exempt from the ban, explaining why Russian oil was still being exported to the EU in 2023.
