Thu 05 June 2025:

The Russian Finance Ministry reported Wednesday that oil and natural gas revenues fell 35.4% in May, compared to the same month last year, to 512.7 billion rubles ($6.5 billion).

In the first five months of 2025, they dropped 37.4% to 4.24 trillion rubles. The ministry said there was more revenue loss from oil and natural gas in May than planned.

With falling oil prices in Russia, the budget had a deficit of 3.2 trillion rubles from January – April. The price of Brent crude oil has declined more than 11% since the beginning of 2025.

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West is helping Russia

Since the start of that invasion in February 2022, Russia has made more than three times as much money by exporting hydrocarbons than Ukraine has received in aid allocated by its allies.

Data analysed by the BBC show that Ukraine’s Western allies have paid Russia more for its hydrocarbons than they have given Ukraine in aid.

Campaigners say governments in Europe and North America need to do more to stop Russian oil and gas from fuelling the war with Ukraine.

How much is Russia still making?

Proceeds made from selling oil and gas are key to keeping Russia’s war machine going.

Oil and gas account for almost a third of Russia’s state revenue and more than 60% of its exports.

In the wake of the February 2022 invasion, Ukraine’s allies imposed sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons. The US and UK banned Russian oil and gas, while the EU banned Russian seaborne crude imports, but not gas.

Despite this, by 29 May, Russia had made more than €883bn ($973bn; £740bn) in revenue from fossil fuel exports since the start of the full-scale invasion, including €228bn from the sanctioning countries, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

The lion’s share of that amount, €209bn, came from EU member states.

EU states continued importing pipeline gas directly from Russia until Ukraine cut the transit in January 2025, and Russian crude oil is still piped to Hungary and Slovakia.

Russian gas is still piped to Europe in increasing quantities via Turkey: CREA’s data shows that its volume rose by 26.77% in January and February 2025 over the same period in 2024.

Hungary and Slovakia are also still receiving Russian pipeline gas via Turkey.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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