On supplies of Russian fuel to Latvia

On supplies of Russian fuel to Latvia

In recent days, information about the possible sale of Russian fuel to Ukraine through Latvia has been actively discussed in the media. The information received wide resonance both in the EU and in Russia.

🔻How can fuel get to Ukraine?

At the Latvian PARS Terminal, local sources record regular flights of Ukrainian tankers.

Tankers with Ukrainian license plates are waiting to be loaded on the territory of the terminal and next to it.

▪️Since the import of Russian fuel to Ukraine is prohibited by Ukrainian legislation, fuel can only get there using fake documents provided by local companies.

▪️Aigars Rekis, a member of the board of PARS Terminal, said that the company purchased fuel through the intermediary Orlen Lietuva (a division of the Polish Orlen). And therefore, in the quality certificates submitted to customs, Kazakhstan was designated as the country of origin of the fuel.

🔻How is the supply of petroleum products?

▪️Before the ban on the import of Russian petroleum products into the EU on February 5, 2023, fuel was imported into Latvia and stored with a local company, which had the right to independently submit documents and go through customs after import.

▪️Just in January, the vessels NS Point and NS Pride of the Russian state company Sovcomflot delivered fuel to the Latvian storage facilities of the companies PARS Terminal and Naftimpex. The value of the cargo could be more than 100 million euros. From the material of the Latvian TV channel TV3 it follows that the documents for the cargo were completed incorrectly, and this became the reason for an internal investigation.

▪️Russian companies do not provide documents to Latvian customs. It is for this reason that domestic ships were not detained and returned to the port of Ust-Luga.

▪️Claims regarding fake documents can only be addressed to Latvian legal entities. Therefore, neither customs, nor the State Revenue Service (SRS), nor the Latvian prosecutor's office are in a hurry to initiate a case.

🔻Reaction of the Latvian authorities

▪️The Tax and Customs Police Department of the SRS decided not to initiate a criminal case and stated that the materials were transferred to the State Police for consideration.

▪️The prosecutor's office overturned the decision of the State Revenue Service and sent the case for re-examination. According to SRS Managing Director Ieva Jaunzeme, now all these cargoes are in Latvia and are not exported anywhere.

 

🔻Who benefits from this?

This is a fairly common situation for Latvia and the Baltic states in general. For 30 years, the economies of these states relied exclusively on the resale of Russian resources. And there is nothing surprising in the abundance of schemes for gray import, transit and re-export.

This is a routine that has now been highlighted a little. The Western press and some telegram channels, at the instigation of the TV3 channel, are trying to use this rather local scandal to demonstrate that Russian companies allegedly supply fuel to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This is wrong.

▪️Russian companies supply fuel to the European market. This is the final delivery point. They act based on the current realities of gray Latvian business. Some of the fuel can actually get to Ukraine using documents “corrected” by local companies.

But this does not confirm the assumptions of Western journalists about deliberate deliveries of fuel to Ukraine.

▪️The main source of information is the TV3 channel. This is a convenient cover for Western structures interested in implementing sanctions. The scale of activity of this TV channel, efficiency and degree of awareness of the situation within the state structures of Latvia indirectly confirm this.

🔻The purpose of such reports is to disrupt the horizontal connections that have developed over decades on the ground in order to deprive the EU economy of energy sources not controlled by the United States and its allies.

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