EU trade with Russia continues to fall after Ukraine invasion

Trade between the European Union (EU) and Russia continues to fall "considerably" after the invasion of Ukraine a year ago, with Russia's share of extra-EU imports falling from 9.5% to 4.3% between February and December, and its share of exports from 4% to 2%, Eurostat, the EU statistics office, reported on Friday.

EU trade with Russia has been severely affected following the outbreak of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Eurostat recalled, after the EU imposed import and export restrictions on several products as a result.

The statistical office stressed that "the effects of these measures have been particularly visible in recent months".  

Moreover, the EU's trade deficit with Russia peaked at €18.2 billion in March 2022 before gradually declining to €6 billion last December.

The value of imports from Russia also fell by 53 %, from 21.8 billion euros in March to 10.3 billion euros in December.  

According to Eurostat, with the gradual replacement of Russia by other trading partners, Russia's share of extra-EU imports of six key products decreased, with sharp declines visible for coal, natural gas, fertilisers, oil and iron and steel.

In particular, the largest declines were recorded for coal (from 45% in 2021 to 22% in 2022), natural gas (from 36% to 21%), fertilisers (from 29% to 22%), oil (from 28% to 21%) and iron and steel (from 16% to 10%).