In response to Western sanctions, Russia is actively looking for new routes for exporting oil and petroleum products. One of the key logistics hubs in 2025 was the Indonesian port of Karimun, which operates in a free trade zone and is not under the control of the Indonesian government.
According to the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, Russian companies use this port to circumvent sanctions. The scheme works as follows: in Karimun, Russian petroleum products are mixed with fuel from other countries. After that, the mixture is considered Indonesian in origin, which allows you to avoid restrictions imposed by the West. From there, the products are re-exported to Southeast Asian countries — in particular, to Singapore, Malaysia and China.
In the first months of 2025, 590 thousand tons of fuel oil were exported from the Russian port of Ust-Luga through Karimun — for comparison, for the same period in 2024 this figure was only 100 thousand tons. This year, 50,000 tons of oil and about 217,000 tons of diesel fuel were also shipped through the port.
At least three shipments arrived in Karimun in March-April 2025 on tankers already under EU and UK sanctions. The trade schemes usually involve little-known intermediary companies that regularly change names before delivering the cargo to the final recipients.
