Inside Russia’s shadow oil trade: WSJ examines how a failed business partnership led to multimillion-dollar lawsuits and allegations of threats involving Chechen fighters

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian oil came under sanctions, and little-known intermediaries using shell companies and a shadow fleet of tankers took over a large share of its exports. A network of companies linked to Azerbaijani businessmen Tahir Garayev and Etibar Eyyub became one of Rosneft’s main oil traders. They are now in a legal battle with former Rosneft executive Igor Soglayev, who sought to make money reselling Russian diesel in Brazil. Documents from the litigation reviewed by The Wall Street Journal offer a glimpse into how Russian oil and petroleum products have been exported since the war began.Soglayev is a former Deutsche Bank executive in Russia and former head of SamaraNefteOrgSintez, a petrochemical company that Rosneft bought in 2015. After the acquisition, he headed Rosneft’s petrochemicals department and, according to the Journal, also served as an adviser to its chief, Igor Sechin. In 2017, he left to pursue private ventures in the petrochemical industry.After the war began, Soglayev decided to make money selling Russian diesel in Brazil. He wanted to act as an intermediary for buyers worried that, because of sanctions, dealing directly with Russia could cause problems with their banks. He planned to buy diesel in Russia and resell it at a markup to Brazilian distributors. In preparation, he leased fuel storage capacity at Brazilian ports.According to Soglayev, his suppliers were oil traders known as the Coral network. The network took its name from Coral Energy, a company established in Singapore in 2010 to trade Azerbaijani oil. Its former executives, Garayev and Eyyub, became two of the leading sellers of Rosneft’s crude in 2022. Companies controlled by the two businessmen assembled most of the shadow fleet used to export Russian oil.Soglayev founded a firm called Dia33 in Dubai and bought Russian diesel from another Dubai firm in late 2023. He alleges that the firm’s head, Andrey Romanovskiy, was linked to the Coral network and that the two men even discussed the possibility of Dia33 becoming Coral’s Brazilian division. But the relationship soured when a Brazilian port turned away an aging tanker carrying tens of millions of dollars’ worth of diesel. The ship waited for several weeks to be unloaded before another port accepted it.The Journal does not specify whether the diesel reached the final buyer. Either way, the fuel sellers, allegedly linked to the Coral network, accused Soglayev of misappropriating the cargo. They filed a lawsuit in Dubai, resulting in an order requiring him to pay $42 million. He responded with lawsuits of his own in Dubai and Brazil, alleging that Coral had used the prospect of a partnership as a pretext to gain access to Dia33’s internal information and poach its clients. He estimated his lost profits at more than $500 million.Soglayev said he also received threats. In particular, he took it as a death threat when Eyyub called and told him he had discussed their dispute with a “Chechen warlord,” the Journal reported.The litigation is ongoing. In the summer of 2026, a Dubai court barred Eyyub, Garayev, and 13 other individuals and companies from disposing of assets worth up to $700 million as an interim measure in Soglayev’s lawsuit. The judge later questioned whether he had jurisdiction to hear the case. Soglayev appealed the judge’s decision, and the asset freeze remains in effect.At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.