Germany can buy hundreds of thousands of tonnes of Russian oil, despite the embargo, through a subsidiary of Rosneft. This was reported by the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper investigated and found that the German General Customs Administration in early September obliged the customs authorities in Berlin and Frankfurt am Oder to allow Rosneft Deutschland to pass crude oil “without delay”.
Although the instruction of the German customs regulator is not of an emergency nature, in practice it gives Rosneft’s German unit the opportunity to import crude oil without checking for possible circumvention of sanctions, the newspaper said.
According to the newspaper, Rosneft Deutschland used to be completely dependent on oil supplies from Russia, but recent reports suggest that the organisation may have changed its strategy by starting to buy oil from Kazakhstan. Despite this, the German Customs Anti-Smuggling Office has expressed serious concerns about the possible high risk of circumventing sanctions as a result of such deals.
The newspaper claims that the Kazakh oil field, from which oil is allegedly supplied to Germany, belongs to Lukoil from Russia.
As a reminder, earlier Russian President Vladimir Putin criticised attempts by the European Union countries to completely abandon Russian energy carriers, while the entire Western economy is at “ground zero”.