The EU has imposed various import and export restrictions on several products since Russia launched its war of aggression by invading Ukraine in February 2022, resulting in a 58% decline in exports to Russia and an 86% drop in imports from Russia between the first quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2024.
However, the trend of reducing economic cooperation reversed its direction in the third quarter of this year. Both imports from and exports to Russia increased slightly, compared with the previous quarter.
Comparing the third quarter of 2022 with the third quarter of 2024 there were large drops for nickel (-21 percentage points (pp)) and petroleum oil (-17 pp). By contrast, in this period shares for fertilisers (+13 pp), natural gas (+3 pp) and iron and steel (+2 pp) all increased.
Russia's share in extra-EU imports of fertilisers rose from 17% in the third quarter of 2022 to 31% in the third quarter of 2024. Morocco (20%) and Egypt (11%) were the next largest origins of fertiliser imports in the third quarter of 2024.
The EU also exported a wide range of products to Russia, albeit mainly at much lower volumes than before the war. The exception is pharmaceuticals where the volume of pharmaceutical products remained stable compared with the first quarter of 2021.
