The ship SCF Surgut slowly glides through the Bosphorus – the strait that connects Europe and Asia in the middle of Turkish Istanbul. 274 meter state-owned Russian oil tanker on its way from the Black Sea to the open sea.
SCF, or Sovcomflot as the state-owned Russian shipping company is actually called, was covered in the spring of 2022 with sanctions from Western countries due to Russia’s war against Ukraine. The sanctions was further tightened the other week. But while the EU, Great Britain and the United States struck economically, other countries have a decidedly different attitude.
“Had no moral problems consuming Russian oil”
Surgut and its cargo are bound for India, one of the countries that have emerged as major consumers of Russian oil. Another is precisely Turkey. In Istanbul, one can see with the naked eye how trade with Russia has almost doubled in the middle of a raging war.
– It has definitely increased, says Yörül Isik, a foreign policy analyst and boat scout who shares his observations daily from the terrace in Istanbul to his over 50,000 Twitter followers.
– Turkey has divided its politics in this war. While clearly siding with Ukraine, the country has had no moral qualms about consuming more Russian oil.
Tougher action against sanctions evaders
Turkey is not part of the EU and not part of the US and is thus not bound by their sanctions against Russia. But continuing to trade with Russia is one thing, allowing itself to become an intermediary for EU companies trying to dodge sanctions is another.
That accusation has been directed at Turkey, among others, by both the United States and EU countries, with Germany in the lead. And now there are demands for tougher measures against sanctions evaders.
Russia’s Consul General in Istanbul, Andrej Buravov, for his part dismisses the description of sanctions rounding and, in a written comment to SVT, calls the sanctions illegal:
“Russia is actively and more successfully rebuilding its entire system of foreign economic relations, with a primary focus on those regions and states that do not accept an ideology of sanctions.”