European Union countries are meant to have placed an array of sanctions on Russia, preventing exports of a host of goods and services, ranging from high-end machinery to luxury cars, to the country in the wake of its unprovoked 2022 invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
And official data do show that EU exports to Russia have slumped, by 31% during the first five months of the year.
But, curiously, exports from EU countries to Russia’s neighbors have surged.
Take Germany, for instance, whose exports to Kazakhstan are up 105% on a year-over-year basis. German exports to Central Asia and Belarus are up 75%.
IIF
“Not all of this stuff is going to Russia. But a lot of it probably is,” tweeted Robin Brooks, chief economist at the Institute of International Finance, who produced the chart.
And it’s not just Germany. Sweden also has seen a surge of exports to Kazakhstan.
Meanwhile, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary have boosted exports to Kyrgyzstan.
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