Sanctions are gaining momentum

By April 2023, 3.8 thousand Russian companies and 8.2 thousand citizens of the Russian Federation fell under the sanctions of foreign countries, analysts of the Kontur.Prisma compliance risk assessment service calculated. Prior to the start of the military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, 1.6 thousand legal entities and 2.7 thousand individuals were on the sanctions lists. However, in reality, the number of companies under sanctions is much larger: due to the “50% rule”, restrictions apply to organizations that are more than half affiliated with a company that has fallen under direct sanctions. Thus, the total number of sanctioned legal entities by April exceeded 12,000.

A third of the companies under primary sanctions are registered in Moscow and the region – 1.5 thousand, in St. Petersburg – another 375, in the Crimea – 151. “First of all, the sanctions affected research institutes (agricultural, nuclear, gas), design bureaus and the military-industrial complex. The main goal of these actions is to restrict access to foreign technologies, equipment used in production, and also to prevent the sale of manufactured goods abroad,” says Svetlana Kirlanova, head of the Kontur.Prisma project. Thus, most of the restrictions were imposed against companies that are engaged in research and development – 327 legal entities, educational organizations – 241 companies. In third place are credit organizations (91 legal entities).

So far, the growth rate of restrictions is accelerating smoothly: in the first three months of 2023, 864 Russian legal entities fell under sanctions, in the fourth quarter of 2022, sanctions were imposed on 724 companies (see chart). In 2023, the rate of introduction of primary restrictions is likely to decrease, but, according to market participants, they will be compensated by targeted restrictions and a tightening of the secondary sanctions regime – as a result, companies that have managed to adapt to the restrictions may lose new supply channels. Already in April, the EU intends to introduce a new package of restrictions, primarily aimed at tightening control over already introduced restrictions. Under these conditions, experts recommended that the state abandon the artificial reduction of imports and encourage business initiatives to build new value chains (see Kommersant on April 6 and 7).

Diana Galieva