One-third of gray exports enters Russia via Belarus, experts claim
According to Benjamin Hilgenstock, a Senior Economist at the Kyiv School of Economics, publicity makes sanctions circumvention schemes riskier. He commented on the findings of our new investigation.
“There is something to be said about directly targeting the intermediaries [...] that are facilitating this trade. [...] Some of the entities in the middle are significant in size, or the trade they facilitate is. Someone can open new companies that take over the same business. [...] But it [restrictions] does increase the cost of running the circumvention networks significantly”, the expert said.
Last week, we published an investigation into how Belarusian businessmen assisted in equipping Russian military enterprises through sanction circumvention setup. They used a false transit scheme. The documents show that the modern equipment for producing microchips was originally intended for Kazakhstan, but it was forwarded to Russia during a stop-over in Belarus.
To avoid sanctions, a common tactic is to use a re-export scheme. This involves legally importing goods into Belarus and then reselling them to Russia. Corisk, a consulting organization, has calculated that more than 3,000 products are prohibited from being exported to Russia but can be safely supplied to Belarus. SUVs that could be used in the war against Ukraine are among these goods.
“In order to make the export controls effective, the Belarus sanctions must mirror the Russia sanctions. Today the Belarus gap is large enough for an armada of trucks, cars and other goods to pass from the West into Russia, and potentially onwards to the battlefields in Ukraine”, Aage Borchgrevink, Senior Advisor of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee noted.
Experts believe that Belarus serves as a gateway for sanctioned goods from Europe to Russia. According to Corisk, our country accounts for over a third of shadow exports to Russia, totalling more than 10 billion euros in 2022-2023.