Sustained Ukrainian strikes on Russian refining capacity have produced something not seen since the start of the war: Russia importing gasoline and diesel at scale. Since early 2025, long-range drone attacks have repeatedly knocked out major Russian refineries, forcing the country that was once the world's largest fuel exporter by some measures into the unfamiliar role of net product buyer — a shift few analysts expected when the war began.

Windward's analysis of shipping data, combined with Vortexa trade-flow data, puts total Russian imports at an estimated 3.85 million barrels across July–August 2026 — roughly 500,000 barrels in July, rising to about 3.4 million in August as the refinery crisis deepened. Gasoline and gasoline-blending components accounted for 3.1 million barrels of that total. Russia has already shown the strain in policy terms: the government imposed temporary gasoline export bans in 2023, 2024, and again in 2025 to protect domestic supply, underscoring how the refining outages have reshaped its trade position.

The more consequential finding concerns where some of that fuel likely originates. The data indicates that a meaningful share is UK- and EU-origin product, moved to Russia through blending and storage infrastructure in Morocco — a flow that, if confirmed by enforcement action, would sit awkwardly with the EU and UK sanctions regimes those exporters operate under.

In parallel, record South Korean volumes are supplying Russia's east coast, using ship-to-ship (STS) transfers in third-country waters, sanctioned and Russia-flagged tonnage, and opaque terminal blending. It is the same playbook long used to launder Russian crude and refined product exports — now running in the import direction.

Morocco: Tanger Med as a Blending and Re-Export Hub

Windward's analysis of shipments received at a major tank storage facility at Morocco's Tanger Med port — a 3.35-million-barrel, 19-tank terminal — shows EU and UK gasoline being received, blended, and re-exported to Russia. Tanger Med, on the Strait of Gibraltar at the junction of Atlantic and Mediterranean shipping lanes, has grown into one of Africa's largest container and transshipment ports, and its substantial tank storage capacity has long served Mediterranean fuel arbitrage flows — infrastructure that makes such re-export routing feasible.

The tracked flows:

• ~1.0 million barrels of gasoline received at the terminal between January and August 2026, carried by nine tankers loading in Spain, the Netherlands, Cyprus, Italy, and the UK.
• ~1.0 million barrels shipped to Russia in June–July 2026, delivered by three tankers to Russian Arctic and Baltic ports.
• ~500,000 barrels currently in transit to Russia from Tanger Med.

The terminal's last non-Russia gasoline export was approximately 260,000 barrels to Spain in May 2026.

Tracked outflow to Russia exceeds the tracked 2026 EU/UK inflow, which is consistent with blending alongside older stock at the terminal to obscure cargo origin. No other country received finished gasoline cargoes from the terminal during the period, and no country outside the EU and UK supplied finished gasoline this year. These are the first Morocco-to-Russia gasoline shipments in Vortexa's records, which date to 2016.

The terminal is not new to this role — only the direction is. Over 2023–2025, Russian diesel delivered to the same facility was re-exported to European Mediterranean ports as "Moroccan" product. The infrastructure that once moved Russian fuel into Europe is likely now moving European fuel into Russia. Third-country hubs like this have been a recurring feature of sanctions-era oil trade — Turkey, the UAE, and Malaysia have all played analogous transshipment roles in Russian export flows — but the reversal documented here shows the same techniques applied to supplying Russia itself.

South Korea: Record Volumes to Russia's Far East

Eight tankers moved an estimated 780,000 barrels of South Korean diesel and gasoline to Russia's eastern ports over July–August — a record. The vessels ranged from small coastal tankers of 3,300 dwt to a 46,308 dwt MR tanker, flying a mix of Russian, Hong Kong, and sanctioned flags.

Notable movements include:

• A Barbados-flagged tanker loaded approximately 340,000 barrels of finished gasoline at a Yeosu storage terminal and transferred it via STS at Yeosu on August 5 to an EU/UK-sanctioned vessel for delivery to Vladivostok.
• A Russia-flagged, EU/UK-sanctioned tanker carried about 89,000 barrels of diesel/gasoil from Ulsan/Onsan to Vladivostok.
• Four further Russia-flagged tankers, one Hong Kong-flagged tanker, and one Togo-flagged tanker made repeated voyages from Yeosu, Ulsan/Onsan, and Gunsan to Vladivostok, Magadan, Nakhodka, and Korsakov.

South Korea participates in the Russia sanctions coalition. Record volumes flowing to Russia's Far East are likely to draw EU and UK government attention — and place pressure on Seoul to tighten enforcement over its own export and STS activity.

Why It Matters: Exposure Is Moving Upstream

EU and UK regulators have explicitly signalled intent to target the facilitators of sanctions evasion — traders, terminal operators, and insurers — alongside the shadow fleet itself. Successive EU sanctions packages and UK designations have progressively expanded from oil price-cap enforcement against tankers to the intermediaries that enable disguised flows, meaning terminal operators and traders at hubs like Tanger Med now sit closer to the enforcement perimeter than at any previous point in the war.

There is currently no obligation for shipowners, charterers, and traders to demonstrate due diligence on the downstream use of their cargoes. But the flows documented here highlight the potential future exposure: EU/UK oil traders and tank storage operators whose product enters third-country blending infrastructure may find their cargoes surfacing at Russian ports — and their names surfacing in enforcement conversations. Watch for three signals ahead: whether EU or UK authorities designate additional blending-hub operators, whether Morocco's port authorities respond to scrutiny of Tanger Med storage flows, and whether South Korea acts on the record eastern deliveries.

Source: Windward