MOSCOW, June 26: State-run oil major Rosneft, Russia's biggest producer, is to buy hundreds of petrol stations and oil production units that once belonged to Yukos, the firm said in a statement on Tuesday.

The company will buy 495 petrol stations and oil production terminals in western and southern Russia for 468 million euros ($629 million) from Unitex, the statement said.

Unitex bought the facilities last month for $483 million at an auction of assets belonging to Yukos, once Russia's top oil producer but now bankrupt following widespread investigations and fines for fraud.

Critics have seen the inquiries as a politically motivated drive to return Russian energy reserves into state hands and take down Yukos’ politically ambitious chief executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is now in a Siberian jail.

Rosneft, which is chaired by the deputy head of the Kremlin administration, Igor Sechin, has been the main beneficiary of the Yukos bankruptcy sale, rising from second biggest oil producer to first in the past month.

—APP