Crossing the Urals
Western sanctions and boycotts targeting Russian oil exports to Europe meant that transparency over their routes vanished not only for Western watchers, but for the Russian government too
Pricing of Russian oil has become a rather interesting subject since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Oil trade is the most important trade link between Russia and the world, it is an obvious front for the ongoing economic war between Russia and the West, and were is a war, there is the accompanying fog.
International trade data, gathered by customs authorities and available on monthly basis and ship movements data create surprisingly rich food for thought and deduction on who and how keeps the trade going and the possible scale of the profits. My interpretation of the data is only a plausible explanation, I do not have any access to information on actual deals, but I believe this is the best hypothesis one might come up with and have not seen any other theories either.
This time my research was published at Carnegie, so please take a look at https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/89052
I’d be glad to read your feedback in comments or discuss it further here.