The Vadinar facility is the first in the South Asian country to be targeted by the bloc

The European Union (EU) has announced sanctions on India's second-largest oil refinery. The Vadinar facility in the state of Gujarat is partly owned by Russian company Rosneft.

The measures are part of the bloc's 18th package of sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine conflict, and also target Chinese banks that allegedly enable the evasion of restrictions.

"For the first time, we're designating a flag registry and the biggest Rosneft refinery in India," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Friday on X.

The Vadinar refinery, which has an annual capacity of 20 million tonnes, is owned by Nayara energy, an Indo-Russian private company in which Rosneft has a 49% stake. The EU is a major buyer of the Russian crude that is refined at Vadinar.

By imposing sanctions on India's flag registry, the official list of all the ships that fly a country's flags, the EU can punish any India-flagged ship for transporting Russian oil.

Kallas has called the latest EU measures "one of its strongest sanctions package (sic) against Russia to date." She added, "We're cutting the Kremlin's war budget further, going after 105 more shadow fleet ships, their enablers, and limiting Russian banks' access to funding.

On Thursday the EU's ambassador to India, Herve Delphin, said the bloc has never prevented any country from buying Russian oil. "And good for India, if it had bought Russian oil at discounted prices because that makes it more affordable for you," he added.

Russia has been India's largest oil supplier since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. In May, India's imports of Russian crude oil reached around 1.8 million bpd, the highest level in ten months.

New Delhi has hit out at calls from the West for the South Asian nation to stop importing Russian oil. "Securing the energy needs of our people is understandably an overriding priority for us. In this endeavor, we are guided by what is there on offer in the markets, as also by the prevailing global circumstances," Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said on Thursday.

(RT.com)