Sanctions are not working: how Russia is importing BMWs, Toyotas, and Mercedes on a massive scale
13 February 11:43
Despite international sanctions imposed after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian car market continues to receive tens of thousands of Western and Japanese brand cars. The main supply channel is the People’s Republic of China, through which cars are exported to Russia via so-called “gray schemes.” This was reported by Reuters, citing car registration data, analytics from the Russian company Autostat, and comments from market participants, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
China has become the main hub for car supplies to Russia
After the introduction of sanctions by the European Union, the US, Japan, and South Korea, most Western automakers officially stopped selling cars in Russia. However, as the Reuters investigation shows, Russian dealers are actively circumventing these restrictions through Chinese intermediaries.
In particular, cars from brands such as Toyota, Mazda, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen are entering Russia via China, where they are either manufactured or transited.
According to Dmitry Zazulin, sales director of the Moscow car dealership Panavto-Zapad, demand for Western cars in Russia remains high.
“Many customers want to buy and use only Western brands of cars. But at the moment, we can only bring them in through parallel channels,” he said.
New cars are disguised as used ones to circumvent restrictions
One of the key schemes for circumventing sanctions has been to re-register new cars as used ones. Dealers in China register new cars as sold, then export them to Russia as “used with zero mileage.”
This avoids the need to obtain official export permission from the car manufacturer.
Former car exporter from China Zhang Aijun explained the mechanism:
“This is done to make it easier to export cars without restrictions from manufacturers.”
In China, such cars are sold at significant discounts, but in Russia they are sold at prices close to the cost of new cars.
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Scale of imports: hundreds of thousands of cars after the start of the war
According to Autostat, after the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022, more than 700,000 Western, Japanese, and Korean brand cars were sold in Russia.
In 2025, almost half of the 130,000 such cars were imported from China alone.
The following brands became particularly popular:
- Toyota — nearly 30,000 cars sold, most of them manufactured in China;
- Mazda — about 7,000 cars;
- BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen — nearly 47,000 registered cars.
More than 20,000 of them were manufactured in China.
Car manufacturers acknowledge the problem but cannot fully control it
European and Japanese car companies say they have officially stopped supplying cars to Russia and are trying to prevent unauthorized exports.
BMW emphasized:
“We strictly prohibit the export of cars to Russia. If such deliveries take place, it is beyond our control and against our will.”
Mercedes-Benz also noted that detecting such violations is a difficult and lengthy process.
Sanctions have reduced official sales, but have not been able to stop them completely
According to analysts, sanctions have significantly reduced official sales of Western cars in Russia — from over 1 million in 2021 to about one-eighth of that volume.
However, parallel imports via China have allowed the Russian market to partially offset the losses.
Sanctions expert Sebastian Bennink explained:
“There are too many ways to circumvent sanctions, and it is almost impossible to completely prevent certain cars from entering Russia.”
China has become Russia’s key partner in the automotive sector
The growth of the automotive trade between Russia and China has been one of the key factors supporting the Russian car market.
China not only manufactures international brands of cars in its factories, but has also become a major logistics hub for their resale.
Analysts predict that this trend will continue as sanctions remain in place and demand for Western cars in Russia remains high.
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