Quotables

In 2025, Russia accounted for more than 92% of Hungary’s crude oil imports, up from 61% before the Ukraine war, according to a new report from the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD). 

“Despite full access to alternative supply routes… Hungary has deepened its dependence on Russian oil, turning a temporary EU exemption into a permanent loophole in the sanctions regime,” the report alleged.

Hungary is buying Russian oil despite alternative supplies being available, according to a report that accuses Budapest of failing to pass down to consumers the savings it makes from buying cheap Russian fuels.

Instead, the savings become profits for Hungary’s largest oil company, which is part-owned by foundations linked to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, according to the report from the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD), a European-based public policy institute, which shared an advance copy of its analysis with CNN.

“The dependence on discounted Russian oil has not trickled down to consumers,” Martin Vladimirov, director of CSD’s energy and climate program, told CNN. “Instead the profit from reselling cheap oil goes in the pocket of the monopoly supplier MOL in the form of excess profit, which indirectly funds Orbán’s state capture networks.”

"What matters is contractual origin and delivery point. If Russian gas is first imported into a non-EU country and then sold on a hub via a non-Russian counterparty, it becomes very hard to distinguish (this gas) from any other volume unless the regulation explicitly targets such indirect flows."

“The only durable way to do that is to ban petroleum products imports from countries that use Russian oil,” said Martin Vladimirov, an analyst at the Center for the Study of Democracy, which tracks Russian energy shipments. Further, he said, Europe “needs to crack down on a member state level and there needs to be a pan-EU authority that actually goes after several cases.”

According to the new findings from the influential Center for the Study of Democracy think tank, set to be unveiled Tuesday in Washington, European countries have become more exposed to energy price shocks, with indicators surging more than fivefold in the past three years.

"A year after Draghi called for stronger EU energy markets, our data shows affordability risks remain high, with retail prices still 40–70 percent above pre-crisis levels in much of Central and Eastern Europe,” said Martin Vladimirov, one of the report’s authors.

Martin Vladimirov, energy expert from the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) in Sofia, does not see a peace deal between Trump and Russia coming, which will include the restart of Nord Stream 2: "I think that is an illusion that especially the Trump family believes in the U.S. Russia uses the speculation for a potential agreement with the U.S. on Nord Stream 2 as a diversion strategy to deepen the confusion and division in Europe on the question of the future of Russian gas", he said. 

"Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, Bulgaria — they're going to produce a very nice plan where they'll put some milestones and targets," said Martin Vladimirov, director of energy and geoeconomics at the Center for the Study of Democracy. "But ultimately their politicians will insist it is too risky for their security of supply and ignore the plan, just as they have done with other plans on the phaseout of coal or on renewables."

In the meantime, he added, "Russia is gaining billions."

Both sides [Russia and Ukraine] have a vested interest in seeing an end to the destruction of their energy infrastructure. For Moscow, it's a question of protecting revenues from its oil and gas industry, whose exports are essential to the Kremlin's coffers. And for Kyiv, preserving the power grid that has been severely damaged by repeated Russian strikes since the 2022 invasion, is essential to keep the military industry humming. It's a win-win situation, but Ukraine is still much more vulnerable than Russia on the energy front.

Russian fertiliser exports to the EU surged by over 33% in 2024 alone, reaching 6.2 million tonnes worth over €2.2 billion. This trade, exempt from sanctions, generated an estimated €550 million in tax revenue for the Russian state. Poland, by far the biggest buyer of Russian fertilizers, saw purchases more than double in 2024.

Disinformation campaigns and the targeted support of radical fringe parties are two dimensions in which the Kremlin regime is trying to influence politics and society in Germany in order to achieve its goals. In its most recent study the liberal Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the Center for the Study of Democracy have just taken up a possible third dimension. In "Networks of Power", three analysts from CSD examine the Russian "shadow influence" in Germany.