Goods worth more than €1 billion from the European Union «disappeared» while being transported in transit through Russia on their way to final recipients in Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Deutsche Welle reports with reference to The Financial Times (FT).
A spot check of €2 billion worth of exports from the EU showed that only half of this amount reached the final recipients. The rest of the goods «settled» in the Russian Federation.
The FT emphasizes that these are dual-use items that can be used for both civilian and military purposes. According to Western officials, this flow of shady trade helped the Russian President Vladimir Putin keep the economy going during the war.
It is noted in the article that these goods could be imported into the Russian Federation directly from the European Union under the pretext that they follow only in transit. Russia has managed to circumvent sanctions by using agents, intermediaries and suppliers who indicate false destinations on EU customs declarations.
As a result, the Russian Federation retained access to important goods such as aircraft components, optical equipment and gas turbines.
According to data on imports of a number of categories of goods, including gas turbines, soldering machines and radio equipment, almost none of the goods shipped from the European Union in these categories reached their destination, The Financial Times emphasizes. A significant share of shadow exports, which never reached the official destination, left the EU for Russia from the territory of the Baltic countries, the media outlet points out.
