In May 2026, Russia exported a record volume of crude oil from ports in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov. 58 tankers made 60 voyages, with a total export volume of 7.6 million tonnes. Half of the tankers were owned by companies registered in Greece.

From 2022 on, in the context of full-scale war, the issues of Ukraine's temporarily occupied territories shall not be considered selectively. All occupied regions — including the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, and parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions — are parts of a single space of armed aggression, large-scale and systematic human rights violations, and international crimes by the Russian Federation, and shall be the subject of a sole negotiation and strategic track. Any separate discussions on the “specific” status of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol or the Black Sea-Azov region carry the risks of fragmenting international solidarity and play into the Russian Federation’s approach of “special cases,” which is unacceptable for the international security and legal order system.