But India is far from alone.

Greek Shippers Make Billions from Russian Oil

The most recent report was published on Tuesday by the Financial Times. According to its calculations, Greek companies have earned $3.8bn (€3.25bn) over the past three years from transporting Russian oil by sea.

They have shown a greater willingness than other carriers to accept risk, as illustrated by Dynacom Tankers’ attempts to keep operating through the Strait of Hormuz despite the turmoil in the region.

Greek shipping companies are rewarded with higher revenues, as traders pay hefty premiums for tankers carrying Russian oil. Shipbrokers put the premium for such voyages at 30% to 40% above comparable shipments of non-sanctioned oil.

“There is money to be made there and no one else will go in and make that money”, maritime intelligence analyst Michelle Wiese Bockmann told the Financial Times.

Citing data from Windward and Vortexa, the newspaper adds that Greek shipping companies transported nearly 15% of Russia’s oil exports in May. It estimates that Dynacom Tankers alone has earned roughly €800m ($936m) from transporting Russian oil since July 2023. Companies such as Olympic Shipping and Management, Stealth Maritime and Polembros Shipping have also earned substantial sums running into the hundreds of millions. Only entities registered in the United Arab Emirates have transported more Russian oil than Greek firms over the past three years.

When Scrapped Tankers Sail Again

Profiting from chartering ships for Russian oil traders is only one of the success stories created by sanctions.

Russia’s shadow fleet would not be able to carry so much oil if several Western companies had not sold decommissioned vessels, which later became part of that fleet, to various shell companies.

The investigative organization Follow the Money and journalists from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) have calculated that Western shipowners earned more than $6.3bn (€5.39bn) from selling aging tankers that later became part of Russia’s shadow fleet. Europe- and US-sold vessels make up nearly 40% of that fleet, or around 230 ships.

The KSE Institute at the Kyiv School of Economics defined a tanker as part of the shadow fleet if it was shipping Russian oil, had an opaque ownership structure and lacked reliable Western oil spill insurance.

According to the analysis, most of these ships had also belonged to Greek shipowners, though several were sold in this way by companies based in Germany, Belgium, Cyprus and other European countries.

Former Soviet Republics Become Transit Hubs

European and American sanctions that block the flow of Western goods into Russia have also produced a network of intermediaries. Cars, luxury goods and various machine parts for which there is still demand in Russia pass through shell companies, which make a healthy profit from the trade.

The route by which goods travel through various countries on their way to Russia can be seen, for example, in EU trade data. Member states have sharply increased exports to several countries of the former Soviet Union. Exports to Kyrgyzstan in 2025 were nearly 10 times higher than in 2021. Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan recorded slightly smaller increases.

EU exports to Turkey and Kazakhstan did not multiply, since they were already relatively large before the war in Ukraine, but in absolute terms the increase was extreme. In Turkey’s case, exports rose from €80bn ($93.6bn) to roughly €114bn ($133.4bn). To put that in perspective, the increase is almost equivalent to the entire gross domestic product of Iceland.

Data on exports from these countries to Russia confirm that a large share of the increased trade volume with the EU is flowing onward to Russia.

Yet it is almost impossible to track the exact flow, since some goods may have passed through several intermediaries, including entities in China, Hong Kong, India and other countries. Beijing and New Delhi have also dramatically increased their exports to Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine.

Sanctions have so far failed to bring about Russia’s promised economic collapse, though they have imposed significant costs on the country. What they have also done is create new business opportunities for speculators and a gray area in the global economy. This shows the power of the market: despite restrictions, supply has found its way to places where demand persists. And many have profited from it.