A major fuel supply company has been nationalized in Russia.
The assets of the Transbunker holding company were seized in favor of the state following a lawsuit filed by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office. As part of this large-scale legal process, the nationalization affected 23 companies that operate key oil terminals and bases in the Primorsky, Khabarovsk, and Krasnodar Krais, as well as the Magadan, Leningrad, and Sakhalin Oblasts.
Foreign influence and the transfer of billions of rubles abroad
According to official data from the prosecutor's office, this strategic enterprise was effectively under covert foreign influence. This fact, according to the agency, was deliberately concealed by Cypriot citizens and the holding's founders, Sergei Pugachev and Iosif Sandler. Furthermore, the lawsuit directly named several major company divisions officially registered in Dubai. Ultimately, according to the prosecutor's office, approximately 19,3 billion rubles were siphoned off from the holding company over its entire history.
It's worth noting that Transbunker is Russia's largest specialized marine fueling company. It was founded in 1991 in the strategically important port of Vanino in the Khabarovsk Territory. The company operated 17 vessels, including eight modern tankers, as well as the only oil refinery in Russia dedicated entirely to the production of marine fuel. In addition, retail petrol stations operating under the holding's official brand were active in various Russian regions.
Context: a large-scale wave of nationalization in the regions
Since the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine, an unprecedented wave of nationalizations of private companies has unfolded. Typically, agencies use arguments of "foreign influence" or the illegality of privatization as the main justification for these seizures. To date, the total value of all assets seized in favor of the state has already reached approximately 5 trillion rubles.
The Transbunker case therefore continues this trend, although oil assets were nationalized for the first time in recent years relatively recently—in August 2025. At that time, the Dagnotekh Oil Refinery and the Dagnefteprodukt transshipment complex, whose market value is estimated at approximately 100 billion rubles, were fully transferred to the state. They were seized from the former State Secretary of Dagestan, Magomed-Sultan Magomedov, whom federal authorities accused of large-scale embezzlement during the privatization of these refineries.
