EU trade with Russia has been strongly affected since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The EU has imposed various import and export restrictions on several products, resulting in a 59% decline in exports to Russia and an 87% drop in imports from Russia between the second quarter of 2022 and the second quarter of 2024.
In particular, in the second quarter of 2024, both imports from and exports to Russia decreased by 16.0% and 9.5%, respectively, compared with the previous quarter. As a result, the EU's trade deficit with Russia stood at €0.2 billion, significantly below the deficit peak of €45.8 billion recorded in the second quarter of 2022.
However, the EU does continue to export a wide range of products to Russia, including machinery, vehicles, pharmaceuticals, electrical machinery and plastics. Between the first quarter of 2021 and the second quarter of 2024 exports for 4 of these 5 product groups had dropped considerably, the exception being pharmaceuticals which stood at €2 032 million in the second quarter of 2024, after having peaked at €2 894 million in the fourth quarter of 2022.
