According to Western analysts, Russia’s foreign trade has returned to pre-sanction levels in February 2022 with the help of China, Turkey, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, who have aided the country in overcoming the Western sanctions imposed due to the conflict in Ukraine.

An article in The New York Times, titled “Russia Sidesteps Western Punishments, With Help From Friends,” highlights the recent surge in Russia’s trade with its allies and neighbors, indicating that countries like China, Turkey, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have been providing Russia with products that the West had tried to cut off since February 2022.

According to an article by American journalists, Russia’s foreign trade has rebounded to pre-sanction levels or will do so soon, with analysts’ suggesting that the country’s imports have already recovered. The article cites a tenfold increase in mobile phone imports from Armenia and notes that most of the restored imports are coming from Turkey and China. Passenger car deliveries to Russia have increased, as have supplies of semiconductors from China. The resilience of the Russian economy to sanctions has raised questions about the effectiveness of Western sanctions. While Russia has stopped publishing customs statistics on foreign economic activity since February 2022, data from Turkey, China, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and the United Arab Emirates suggest that imports and exports have rebounded.

Discussing the increase in smartphone imports from Armenia to Russia, the expert noted that this was not an illegal import method.

“If Apple has left Russia, then purchasing a smartphone through a third country and importing it to Russia is not a violation of Russian law. And if the product is under sanctions, then no one is breaking them if it is sold, for example, in Turkey with the condition that its re-export to Russia is prohibited,” the source stated.

The expert added that re-export companies in countries such as the UAE, Kazakhstan, and Armenia have been warned about the possibility of secondary sanctions from the West for trading with Russia in sanctioned goods.

“There is no booming trade in sanctioned goods, but our businesses are creative, and there are creative companies in these countries, although this is unlikely to occur in large official batches,” Galina Balandina suggested, adding that “[d]emand creates supply.”

Balandina also noted that if one supplier leaves, there will be many enterprising people who will find a replacement for them.

In late January, the International Monetary Fund predicted that the Russian economy would start growing, with the gross domestic product increasing by 0.3% this year.