EU agrifood exports to Russia and neighbourgs (year-on-year % change in EU exports, July 2014-June 2015)

Some banned EU products are still making their way into Russia as re-exports from neighbouring countries. Evidence for this is shown in Figure 5: EU exports of banned products to Belarus increased dramatically after the embargo came into effect (in the case of dairy products, by 423%); at the same time, Belarussian exports to Russia of the same products also increased substantially. However, the importance of this phenomenon should not be exaggerated, as it only concerns very specific categories such as cheeses and fruits. The increase in EU agrifood exports to Belarus and Kazakhstan represents a mere 2% of the drop in exports to Russia, which fell by 41%. The extent of re-exporting is probably even less since the August 2015 crackdown by Russian customs.