The Oxford energy institute with a Kremlin problem

The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies is cited across UK media as an independent expert on oil and gas. Now its Russian ties are under scrutiny.

Vladimir Putin with Novatek boss Leonid Mikhelson

By Matei Rosca and Peter Geoghegan

An influential Oxford-based think tank that has previously been funded by Russia has been accused of pushing Kremlin talking points, Democracy for Sale can report.

The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES) – which is not connected with Oxford University – is frequently cited in British media as an authoritative and independent voice on oil and gas affairs.

That independence is now under scrutiny following a report by Kyiv-based NGO Razom, which alleges that senior OIES staff have retained strong ties to Russian energy interests since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale Ukraine invasion in February 2022.

One OIES researcher has been described as a “propagandist” by a Russian dissident organisation. Another spoke at the Kremlin-controlled Valdai Discussion Club after the Ukraine invasion.

Democracy for Sale also found that OEIS senior fellow Tatiana Mitrova was on the board of Novatek, Russia’s second-largest gas producer and top Liquefied Natural Gas exporter. Novatek, which is owned by oligarch Leonid Mikhelson, has been under US sanctions for over a decade.

Mitrova is still listed as a member of Novatek’s board on the OIES website, but Russian media reports she left the position in 2023.

The questions about OIES’s ties to Moscow come amid concerns in Kyiv that some European leaders could follow Donald Trump’s easing of sanctions on Russian oil and gas in the wake of the war in Iran.

There is little regulation of think tanks in the UK. Labour MP Alex Sobel told us the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies case showed that this needed to change.

“The UK rightly has a formidable international reputation for our think tanks, especially ones linked to our world class universities. However, the lack of any regulation means that fake think tanks utilising names and locations which lend credibility to these astroturf operations can be used with impunity. This must be tackled,’ Sobel said.

Established in 1982, the OIES has previously described itself as “a recognized independent centre of the University of Oxford.” However, a spokesperson for Oxford University said that this title was discontinued in 2020 and that “OIES is entirely independent of the University.”

The institute’s listed funders include energy giants such as Aramco, BP and Chevron, as well as the government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. It previously received funding from Russian energy giant Gazprom and its subsidiaries before they were placed under UK sanctions.

Russian influence spread through lobbying and think tanks “has not been fully scrutinised” according to Oleh Savytskyi, co-author of the Razom report, Fuelling Russia’s Oil and Gas Influence in Europe.

Savytsky told Democracy for Sale that “institutions like OIES parrot key pro-Russia messaging that is helpful to the Kremlin. That kind of influence must come with greater transparency and critical examination, especially where analysis aligns with the interests of sanctioned actors.”

Among those named in the report is OIES senior researcher Katja Yafimava, who the report alleges has consistently adopted positions that can be characterised as “pro-Russian.”

After Russia’s 2022 invasion, she warned that “premature moves to reduce European dependence on Russian gas” could lead to blackouts. In interviews and media appearances last year, she repeatedly warned that sanctions on Russian liquified natural gas (LNG) would create supply risk and significant price increases in Europe, and that the legal means to enforce a ban would be uncertain.

Democracy for Sale has also found posts from Yafimava on X that seem to directly echo Kremlin talking points. On January 27 she wrote that negotiations to end the war in Ukraine “could only be achieved via common European security architecture that would have to include Russia.”

Seven days earlier she wrote that “France will never be content as a junior partner to Germany & the only way to avoid it is to make Russia an integral part of the European security architecture” – a position that aligns closely with longstanding Kremlin objectives.

The Free Russia Forum, an association of dissidents led by US-based Garry Kasparov, includes Yafimava in its public database of Kremlin supporters, classifying her as a “propagandist.”

The Razom report also identifies Russia-based OIES fellow Vitaly Yermakov who remains listed among the institute’s staff despite also being listed as an expert at the Kremlin-controlled Valdai Discussion Club and the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. Both institutions have been sanctioned by Ukraine and Canada.

Since 2022 the Higher School of Economics has been systematically purged of independent-minded staff and has, according to Russian investigative outlet Meduza, effectively become a Kremlin-controlled research institute.

Victoria Vdovychenko, Joint Programme Leader of the Future of Ukraine project at the Cambridge Centre for Geopolitics, said the OIES is “spreading false narratives that Europe cannot cope without Russia.”

She added that academic forums and think tanks can be a particularly effective channel for Kremlin messaging precisely because “professional audiences” are less likely to interrogate their assumptions.

Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian parliament, put the stakes bluntly in a text message to Democracy for Sale. “Putin will stop the war only when he runs out of money; and he will run out of money only when Russia will be deprived of oil and gas revenues. The more oil and gas Russia is able to sell, the longer the war will continue and more innocent people in Ukraine will be killed by Russian strikes.”

Those who argue that European countries should continue buying Russian energy during the war, he said, “offer to fuel [a] Russian war machine which commits genocide against Ukrainians. As simple as that.”

European countries continue to import large volumes of LNG from Russia despite efforts to wind down dependence on Russian energy. The UK in particular has imported billions of pounds worth of jet fuel from refineries in Turkey and India which rely substantially on Russian crude.

The role of think tanks in foreign influence operations is a subject Democracy for Sale has long investigated.

The Rycroft Review into foreign interference in British politics, published last month, noted the absence of regulation in this area and recommended that government “should ensure it has the capability to monitor the think tank landscape, and ready itself to act if it appears that existing mechanisms are not a sufficient control to make transparent the engagement of foreign-funded think tanks in the policy process.”

Green Party MP Sian Berry said “urgent action was needed to deal with the scandalous level of influence” that think tanks can have in Britain.

“I am so disturbed at the lack of scrutiny of who is at the helm of these influential think tanks. No-one, least of all those in Government, should sleep easy knowing that these sorts of institutions, which have direct access to MPs and key policy influencers, can be used to launder Kremlin talking points,” Berry said.

The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did Yafimava, Yermakov or Mitrova.

Update: this story was updated on April 4. to reflect that while while Tatiana Mitrova is listed a current member of Novatek’s board on the OIES website, Russian media reports she left the position in 2023. We are happy to make this correction.