Ukrainian troops are consuming more and more Russian fuel.
(Photo: dpa)
Warsaw It’s a paradox of war: Ukrainian tanks are increasingly using oil from Russia. According to Ukrainian customs authorities, Ukraine is importing increasing amounts of diesel from Hungary and Turkey – countries whose refineries largely process oil from Russia.
Although the Hungarian MOL Group and Turkish suppliers have had relatively good market positions in Ukraine in the past, Ukrainian customs authorities have only recently reported significant increases in imports. Mineral oil company MOL, which has close ties to the Hungarian government, has doubled its sales to Ukraine in the past six months.
Since MOL gets most of its oil from Russia, Ukraine’s war machine should now be fueled primarily with Russian oil. At the same time, companies that do not source raw materials from Russia are losing market share in Ukraine. Because MOL has a competitive advantage over other European oil companies. The Hungarian group received special permission from the European Union to continue supplying Russian oil to its refineries.
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While Hungary’s special role has thus far received little public attention, Turkey has long made no secret of the fact that it benefits greatly from Russian oil imports.
In principle, storage tanks can be refueled with different petroleum products. “Military engines are often multi-purpose and are very resistant to fuel,” said Polish military expert Damian Ratka.
Rail replaces pipeline as mainstay of oil supply
The attacked country is almost entirely dependent on imported fuel. However, while Russia’s assault on energy supplies has left its mark, there are hardly any shortages in Ukraine.
For example, especially last winter, the West supplied the country with a large number of mobile diesel generators that provide reliable energy for hospitals and other public facilities. Because decentralized supplies are more resilient to crises than large electric and thermal power plants, which are relatively vulnerable to being crippled by rocket attacks.
In order to ensure the energy supply of critical infrastructure, several mobile diesel generators in Ukraine have been put into operation.
(Photo: IMAGO/Ukrinform)
Still, ample supplies of diesel were assured, as many companies in the wartime economy had ceased operations or ceased operations altogether. Experts estimate that consumption of petroleum products could drop by 40% to 50% despite the huge needs of the military.
Sergey Kuyun, director of the Kiev “A-95” advisory group, also confirmed this. He spoke of the fact that energy supply is currently “particularly favorable”. The reason is that Ukraine has acquired a large number of new delivery routes since the beginning of the war.
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“Fuel transport is mainly via railways in Poland,” said Michal Paszkowski, an analyst at the Institute for Central European Studies (IEŚ). “Fuel enters the country via pipelines from Slovakia and Hungary, and diesel is first transported from Romania and then to Ukraine by rail.”
Before the Russian invasion, Ukraine had only one of six refineries. The last Ukrainian refinery in Krzemyenzuk met about 30 percent of Ukraine’s fuel needs before the war, but the refinery is considered inefficient and processes mostly domestic oil and oil imported from Azerbaijan, according to the company.
However, in April 2022, the plant was severely damaged in a Russian bomb attack. The refinery has now resumed operations in a very limited form.
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