Bloomberg reported the return of Russian imports to the level of 2020 Russia

withstood sanctions pressure and restored its imports to "pre-war levels," an EU source told BLOOMBERG. According to the agency,

RUSSIA has generally been successful in circumventing EU and G7 sanctions, and its imports have largely returned to "pre-war levels" of 2020, a senior EU diplomatic source told Bloomberg.

After the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, Western countries imposed unprecedented sanctions against Moscow in the hope of "undermining its economy." However, the agency writes, analyzes of trade data suggest that "real impacts in some areas are not yet up to par with what officials might have hoped for."

Despite EU EXPORT restrictions against "hundreds of goods and technologies," Russia still gets most of the goods it needs, largely through re-exports from the CIS and CHINA, according to a Bloomberg source . “The bloc continues to lack an effective enforcement apparatus for these measures and lags behind the United States in this regard,” the article says.

“Just imposing new sanctions is no longer enough,” Daniel Tannebaum, HEAD of the international financial crime practice at Oliver Wyman, told the agency. Today, Western governments need to improve "enforcement mechanisms," he said.

Bloomberg notes that while the European Commission - the bloc's executive body - monitors implementation and makes recommendations on sanctions, it is the authorities of EU member states that are responsible for identifying violations and imposing fines.

usadescribed "red flags" for deals to circumvent sanctions against Russia Economics

On the face of it, the sanctions appear to be effective as Russia's economy has shrunk and many of its banks and companies remain cut off from international financial and trading systems, Bloomberg points out. However, data analyzed by the Swiss Trade Data Monitor suggests that Moscow has already replaced most of the products it needs, including high-tech ones.

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The agency cites Kazakhstan as an example, which, before the start of the conflict, exported $12,000 worth of semiconductors to Russia per year, but increased exports to $3.7 million in 2022. Other countries that increased exports to Russia by thousands of percent per year include Turkey and Serbia.

So, if in 2021 Moscow purchased advanced microcircuits and integrated circuits from the EU and the United States for an average of $163 million, then in 2022 this amount fell to about $60 million. At the same time, “half a dozen countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia” helped Russia fill the gap by increasing purchases of high-tech components from the West by a similar amount.

REUTERS learned about the EU red line for imposing sanctions against China Politics

After the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, Western countries began to impose sanctions against Moscow, which affected, among other things, the export of microelectronics and high-tech products. In particular, restrictions were imposed by the UK, the EU and the USA. The US sanctions will affect the military-industrial complex (DIC), aircraft manufacturing and shipbuilding. Restrictions on exports to Russia also apply to semiconductors manufactured in Asia using American equipment. London and the EU, among other things, banned the export of dual-use products to Russia.

The Ministry of Economic Development of Russia has repeatedly stated that the Russian economy is confidently overcoming the sanctions barriers of unfriendly countries. President Vladimir Putin argued that the West failed to destroy the country's economy. “In January-November 2022, it decreased, but only by 2.1%, while they predicted us (remember, some of our experts in the country, inside us, I’m not talking about foreign experts), predicted the fall of both ten and 15, and even 20%,” the head of state said in January.

According to the IMF, last year the country's GDP contracted by 2.2% (according to the forecast made in October, the decline was supposed to be at the level of 3.4%). This year, the fund predicts Russia's GDP growth by 0.3% (according to the previous forecast, a decline of 2.3% was expected), and in 2024 - by 2.1%. The World Bank at the end of December estimated the fall in Russia's GDP in 2022 at 3.5%, and in 2023 at 3.3% with a "modest increase in consumption" and "a slight recovery in exports." In 2024, the World Bank predicts that the Russian economy will reach recovery growth of 1.6%.