Billions of dollars of Rosneft’s foreign earnings were funnelled through a Kremlin-backed money-laundering network, putting the state oil group at the heart of Russia’s efforts to circumvent sanctions and supply its war in Ukraine. A vast leak from inside A7, a Moscow-backed fintech company, shows that Rosneft-connected traders supplied more than $2bn in vital hard currency to the group, which has paid for battlefield supplies and other imports to Russia.

The documents expose the inner workings of the A7 payment network, founded by fugitive Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor with extensive Russian state backing. A7 aims to enable clients in Russia to make international payments despite being shut out of the Swift system. The company serves small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as vast conglomerates owned by close associates of President Vladimir Putin.

Using forged documents, A7 set up front companies in other jurisdictions. The FT has identified about 200 such front companies in the document leak. A7 filled the bank accounts of these entities by hoovering up export earnings from 16 Rosneft-linked companies, part of the so-called “Coral network” named after Coral Energy, led by sanctioned Azerbaijani businessmen Etibar Eyyub and Tahir Garayev.