State-controlled Rosneft is moving ahead with Vostok Oil, a 10-trillion-ruble project valued at $118 billion, despite tighter Western sanctions imposed over Russia’s war on Ukraine. An investigation by RFE/RL’s Russian investigative unit, Systema, produced with Arctic-focused NGO Arctida, outlines the network of ties, suppliers and contractors involved in the vast Arctic development.
On September 5, Vladimir Putin joined by video link for the opening of the delayed project’s first stage. As part of that phase, Rosneft built a 790-kilometer pipeline and a port on a frigid bay on the Taimyr Peninsula leading to the new Bukhta Sever Arctic terminal. Putin described the launch as a “momentous event” for both the Arctic region and Russia.
For the Kremlin, Vostok Oil serves two strategic goals: strengthening Russia’s footprint in the Arctic and sustaining output of its key export commodity as reserves in more accessible parts of the country decline. According to the investigation, the project also illustrates how Rosneft, led by Igor Sechin, is assembling a venture of this scale under increasingly restrictive sanctions.
One of the central figures highlighted is billionaire pipe magnate Dmitry Pumpyansky. In 2021, a company he controlled, Sinarastroikomplekt, became Vostok Oil’s general contractor and sole supplier of metal products, mainly steel pipes. Systema says Pumpyansky’s links to Sechin go back at least to 2009, when he joined a government metals-industry commission chaired by Sechin, then a deputy prime minister.
In March 2022, shortly after Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine, Dmitry Pumpyansky was placed under Western sanctions. He then stepped back as beneficiary of Sinarastroikomplekt and his main company, TMK, and resigned from their boards. Later that year, Gibraltar authorities seized his multimillion-dollar superyacht and sold it at auction.
The report says Pumpyansky nonetheless continued to take part in meetings with Putin and, in 2024, joined the supervisory board of the All-Russian Volleyball Federation. That body was long headed by Nikolai Patrushev, while Sechin has sat on its board since 2009.
The investigation also focuses on Taimyr Invest, a logistics company working at Rosneft facilities. In early 2026, Alina Kabayeva’s father, Marat Kabayev, acquired a 25% stake in the company. When Russian state news agency TASS interviewed Kabayev in March, it noted in background information that Taimyr Invest delivers cargoes to Vostok Oil.
Financial documents obtained by Systema and Arctida show that Taimyr Invest received payments from Vostok Oil, although the amount — less than 200 million rubles, or $2.4 million, in 2024-26 — was only a small share of the company’s annual revenue, which runs into tens of billions of rubles. Arbitration court records reviewed by Systema also indicate that Sinarastroikomplekt is a key client of Taimyr Invest.
The same court documents show that after tax audits in 2024-25, Taimyr Invest was ordered to pay an additional 3 billion rubles in taxes and an 800-million-ruble penalty. The company challenged the claims in court, and proceedings are continuing. Taimyr Invest did not respond to Systema’s request for comment.
The investigation further says that after 2022, many Western oil-service firms left Russia or sharply reduced their operations there. Even so, work on Vostok Oil continued, with Russian replacements and some foreign-affiliated entities stepping in to keep the project moving.
That makes Vostok Oil not only one of Russia’s biggest energy investments, but also a case study in how the country’s oil sector is reorganizing supply chains and contracting structures to adapt to a tougher sanctions environment.
