London, 12 August 2026 — EBM Newsdesk Analysis — By Nick Staunton
Eighteen shipments of oil products from refineries running on Russian crude were unloaded at EU ports in July, more than double the eight recorded in June. The EU banned such imports on 21 January 2026.
Spain and Cyprus took seven cargoes each. Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Malta and the Netherlands also received deliveries. Eight arrived via Turkish refineries, five via India and five via Georgia. The figures come from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which has called on member states’ enforcement agencies to investigate.
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SubscribeWhy the Ban Does Not Work
The problem is chemical rather than legal, and it was flagged before the rule took effect.
Crude from different sources is blended at the refinery. A cargo of diesel leaving a Turkish or Indian plant contains molecules from several origins, and no test at a European port can separate them. S&P analysts noted at the time that it remained unclear how the EU would distinguish refined product imports from countries where Russian crude is merely part of the mix.
That is the entire mechanism. Russian crude goes to a third-country refinery, comes out as diesel or naphtha with a Turkish or Indian certificate of origin, and enters the EU legally on paper. The refinery margin is the price Europe pays for the laundering.
Enforcement therefore depends on customs officials making judgements about a refinery’s crude slate rather than testing a cargo — which is why eighteen shipments arrived in a single month with the ban seven months old.
What Is Working
It is worth being fair about the parts that function, because the picture is not uniform failure.
Russian fossil fuel export revenues fell 12% month-on-month in July to €683m per day. Seaborne oil product revenues dropped 45% and volumes 36%. Loadings at Russian ports had already fallen 21% in June. Something in the regime is biting.
Europe has also become the most aggressive sanctioner of the shadow fleet: the EU has now listed 671 vessels, against 25 in July 2024, with the UK at 621. The United States has not designated a shadow fleet vessel since the change of administration.
But CREA’s conclusion on the central tool is unambiguous — the oil price cap has failed to impose a durable constraint on Russian crude export earnings.
Belgium
One figure deserves separating out. In July, 100% of Belgium’s LNG imports came from Russia, making it the EU’s third-largest importer of Russian fossil fuels.
Not a residual share. All of it.
France cut Russian LNG imports 54% to €161m and Spain 64% to €77m, dropping out of the top five. Belgium’s fell 20%.
Meanwhile the 21st sanctions package contains an exemption allowing Greece’s Dynagas to redirect up to 7.4m tonnes of Russian LNG to third countries after the January 2027 import ban — roughly four times the EU-carried trade in 2025.
The Verdict
My view is that Europe has built a sanctions regime it cannot enforce and is reluctant to admit it.
The refined-products ban was always going to be difficult, for reasons the analysts stated publicly in 2025. It was adopted anyway, because adopting it was politically necessary and enforcing it is somebody else’s problem. Eighteen cargoes in July is the result.
The deeper issue is that each package now arrives with exemptions attached, and each exemption has a national champion behind it. Dynagas gets a carve-out. Belgium’s terminals keep running. The rules apply, with adjustments, to everyone except the parties who lobbied.
There is a straightforward point here for European business, and it goes beyond energy. Sanctions compliance is now a governance function rather than a legal one, and a company buying diesel through a Turkish intermediary cannot rely on the certificate of origin telling it anything useful. As with the shadow fleet and its financing, the paperwork is exactly what the structure was designed to produce.
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