Russia imported a record 172,000 tonnes of oil products in August, including gasoline refined from Russian crude at a refinery in India. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said India supplied 70 percent of Russia’s oil product imports.India shipped 120,000 tonnes of gasoline worth 78 million euros. The volume was more than seven times the previous monthly record and three times all of 2025 combined, CREA said.All the gasoline was loaded at the Vadinar refinery in Gujarat and sold by EU-sanctioned Nayara Energy to Rosneft.

Rosneft owns 49.13 percent of Nayara. Vadinar sourced all its crude from Russia in the first eight months of 2026.“Russia is therefore paying a refinery that it partly owns to process its own crude into fuel it can no longer produce domestically,” CREA said. Ukrainian drone strikes have disrupted Russian refining, causing shortages and long queues at filling stations.Moscow has banned fuel exports and is importing gasoline from India, Morocco and Turkey to cover the gap.