Beata Javorcik, Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and Professor of Economics at Oxford University and a fellow of All Souls College mentioned Armenia in the context of “Eurasian trade merry-go-round.”

“Exports from the European Union and the United Kingdom to Russia have declined by more than half since the country launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. But exports from the EU and the UK to Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have also increased sharply, especially among products affected by EU and UK sanctions on Russia.

And these three countries have increased exports to Russia, particularly exports of products that are subject to sanctions.

“Although these shifts do not prove foul play, they do suggest that some sanctioned goods are making their way to the Russian market through a kind of Eurasian trade merry-go-round. Although the new Eurasian flows currently amount to only 5 to 10% of the drop in direct exports from the EU and the UK to Russia, this share has been rising – and is already very high for dozens of specific product lines,” Beata Javorcik wrote in the “The Eurasian Leaks in the West’s Russia Sanctions” article for Project Syndicate.