Many governments have slapped punishing sanctions on Russia, stopping or severely limiting trade with the now essentially pariah state. Yet several nations continue to do business with and in Russia, indirectly funding Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.
Read on as we reveal the countries carrying on as usual, or even strengthening their ties. All dollar amounts in US dollars.
Bucking the Western trend, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has massively stepped up its imports of Russian gold since the start of the war in Ukraine. According to Russian customs records, the state imported 1.3 tonnes of the precious metal in 2021, but this number rocketed to 75.7 tonnes – or $4.3 billion (£3.5bn) worth – last year.
These records show the primary handler of the imported gold was Temis Luxury Middle East, a Dubai-based subsidiary of a French logistics company. Between April 2022 and March 2023 alone, the company shipped 15.6 tonnes of gold believed to have been worth $863 million (£699m).
The state's Gold Bullion Committee has said: "The UAE will continue to trade openly and honestly, with its international partners, in compliance with all current international norms as set down by the United Nations." But as the UAE is one of the world's biggest exporters of gold jewellery and bullion, some Western nations are concerned it could melt down or recast its Russian gold before putting it back on the market.
In retaliation, the US has stated that countries that do business with nations currently subject to American sanctions could lose access to G7 markets. Earlier this month, one of the UAE's biggest gold refineries was officially suspended from the London Bullion Market Association due to ongoing concerns that it was providing a market route for sanctioned Russian gold.
And it's not just gold the Middle Eastern country has been importing. According to the Financial Times, companies registered in the UAE spent at least $17 billion (£13.3bn) on Russian oil between January and April this year, around 90% of which was sent directly to other nations.
In November 2022, it was revealed that Iran received €140 million ($141m/£123m) in cash from Russia, and an assortment of captured weapons originally from the UK and US, in return for more than 160 unmanned drones. The supplies were flown to an airport in Tehran in August 2022, and the nations have reportedly been stepping up their alliance ever since.
Last year, Iran also signed a $40 billion (£35bn) agreement with major Russian energy company Gazprom. It was reported that Iran planned to import Russian gas while continuing to export its own gas, with the deal enabling Russia to develop oilfields and gas deposits in Iran.
The two countries have also linked their banking communication and transfer systems. Due to sanctions, both are banned from SWIFT, the international banking service. With an alternative payment system in place, Iran and Russia can increase their trade volumes, and they're reportedly hoping to develop a gold-backed cryptocurrency that would compete with the US dollar for payments in international trade.
But could relations be turning sour? Although the nations have said they "want to deepen the dialogue and establish and expand contacts in the field of defense", a deal that was supposed to see Tehran buy fighter jets from Russia has apparently fallen through, while Iran has also signed an agreement with the US to "refrain from selling ballistic missiles to Russia".
While striving to appear neutral, the Chinese government has failed to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, only speaking up to oppose Putin's threat of using nuclear weapons.
The belligerent nation's number-one trading partner, China announced its trade with Russia hit a record high in 2022. It has ramped up imports from its northern neighbour since the outbreak of hostilities, taking advantage of the glut of cheap Russian oil and gas, and Russia has become China's top oil supplier. The relationship shows no sign of losing momentum; Russia has predicted that its Chinese trade will hit yet another record high in 2023, with China importing 55% more Russian oil in May this year compared to last.
In return, Russia has been snapping up Chinese microchips and other components and raw materials needed for its military. While China has said it won't sell weapons to Russia, Putin's nation has imported more than $100 million (£78m) worth of Chinese drones this year so far. China's aluminium oxide exports to the warring nation, used for the production of weapons and aeroplanes, are as much as 400 times higher than before. Recent reports have also shown that Russian imports of Chinese ceramics, a component used to make body armour, have increased by almost 70%, while Ukrainian imports have fallen by 61%.
It's not just the defence industry seeing increases in trade. With Western companies no longer selling to Russia, it has sourced consumer goods like cars from China, and machinery and equipment. The two countries also plan to work on "intensifying cultural and humanitarian ties". In a meeting in December, Premier of the Chinese State Council Li Keqiang said: "We have already launched years of sports exchanges... We are ready to develop cooperation not only in sports but also in the humanitarian sphere in general."
Before the war in Ukraine, Germany was Russia's second most important trading partner, followed by the Netherlands, Belarus and the US. While the three Western nations have curtailed trade with Russia due to the war in Ukraine, Belarus has done the opposite. Exports have increased, and Belarus has overtaken the Netherlands and Germany to become Russia's leading trading partner after China.
With many international firms refusing to do business in Russia, Belarus has become an essential source for imports, taking delivery of consumer goods like smartphones and cars from the West and transporting them to its eastern neighbour.
This is no surprise since Belarus, led by dictator Alexander Lukashenko, who's been dubbed Putin's puppet, is Russia's staunchest ally. Belarus' willingness to trade with Russia despite sanctions is probably the least of the West's concerns when it comes to the country's involvement in Ukraine. The former Soviet nation has allowed Russia to fire missiles from its territory and enabled the transport of Russian military troops, tanks and aircraft – earning sanctions of its own.
To highlight the close ties between the nations, Putin recently warned Poland – which has restationed troops near its Belarusian border – that an attack on Belarus would constitute an attack on Russia.
A curious outlier within NATO, Türkiye (formerly Turkey) is taking a far more lenient approach to Russia compared to fellow members of the organisation. Though its government has described the invasion of Ukraine as unlawful, the Turkish government is pursuing a policy of neutrality and has steadfastly refused to impose sanctions. President Erdoğan's administration even blocked Finland and Sweden from joining the defensive alliance for a time.
Türkiye and Russia's trading relationship was bolstered enormously in 2022. Bilateral trade doubled that April as Türkiye became one of the few countries to increase exports to Russia and scale up imports of Russian oil, buying up 246,000 barrels per day during the month, three times the quantity the nation acquired in March. In August 2022, Turkish exports to Russia rose 110%, and Presidents Putin and Erdoğan have reportedly agreed to increase trade between their two countries to $100 billion (£88.5bn) by 2030.
Like Belarus, Türkiye is seen by Russia as a way to sidestep Western sanctions on things like household appliances and electronic goods. The Russian transport operator FESCO has increased the capacity for shipping between the two countries via the Black Sea. As the two countries attempted to renegotiate the now collapsed Black Sea grain deal, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin stressed the "advanced and good" relations between the nations, saying Ankara and Moscow will "inevitably continue to communicate in order to achieve results that will benefit both Russia and Türkiye, and regional stability."
Following the invasion of Ukraine, Kazakhstan's president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has tried to tread quite a fine line, subtly distancing his nation from Russia to appease the West while keeping ally Moscow sweet. In June 2022, the leader of the Central Asian country even went as far as to question the legality of the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk while sitting right next to President Putin.
Be that as it may, relations between Russia and Kazakhstan remain robust and trade between the two nations is positively booming. Bilateral trade quadrupled in 2022, topping $12 billion (£9.9bn) in the first three months alone. Many of the goods being traded to Russia are computers, mobile phones and other products that are re-exported by Kazakhstan after being procured from Western nations. Meanwhile, Russian investment in the neighbouring economy has touched $17 billion (£14bn), and the two countries are collaborating on several ambitious infrastructure megaprojects. In October this year, for example, a new gas pipeline will carry fuel from Russia to Uzbekistan via Kazakhstan.
Still, it's clear that President Tokayev's government is being cautious, perhaps because the EU has been seen as trying to court Kazakhstan with trade and renewable energy opportunities.
Like several other Asian countries, India has adopted a neutral stance towards the war in Ukraine, opting to sit on the fence for geopolitical reasons. Although it maintains open communication with Russia and Ukraine, India's foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar described the country's relationship with Moscow as "strong and steady" – and the nation continues to view Russia as a useful counter to China's growing power. The added upside for India is cheap Russian energy and increased investment opportunities.
Indeed, India has been bingeing on discounted Russian oil, with imports increasing from 100,000 barrels per day in January 2022 to a record 870,000 a day in May. By November, Russia had become India's top oil supplier, according to the Financial Times, a position it retained through December. This trend has continued; according to the Reserve Bank of India, Russia now accounts for 19.1% of India's crude oil imports, up from just 2% a year ago.
The country has also been stocking up on Russian liquefied natural gas and coal, with coal imports up 345% in the first quarter of 2022. A total of 12 major Indian companies continue to operate in Russia, and Indian engineering exports have reportedly increased almost threefold, reaching a value of $116.9 million (£91.2m) in June this year.
Russia has been keen to shore up ties with its fellow BRICS nations of Brazil, India, China and South Africa. At the bloc's 2022 annual conference, President Putin said trade between Russia and the BRICS countries surged by 38% in the first three months of the year.
Like India and China, Brazil has appeared neutral on the war in Ukraine, but it's too soon to say how newly elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will handle the nation's relationship with Moscow.
President Putin, meanwhile, has rolled out the welcome mat for the Brazilian leader, who started his new term in January this year. There's a lot at stake when it comes to trade between the two countries, which reached record highs in 2022. Russian exports to Brazil almost doubled in value in the first half of 2022, with Russia becoming the Latin American country's fifth-largest supplier. Exports of fertilisers and fuel have mainly driven this, while Brazilian exports to Russia surpassed $1 billion (£872m) for the first time.
Trade between the two countries shows no sign of slowing down, and Brazil has expressed its intention to increase trade with Russia further, partly to reduce its reliance on the US dollar.
Mirroring China, India and Brazil, South Africa has gone down the non-aligned route when it comes to the war in Ukraine, and the country's president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has railed against the West's sanctions on Russia. The two countries have enjoyed good relations for decades, dating back to when the USSR supported the struggle against apartheid.
That said, many policy experts find the relationship between South Africa and Russia perplexing because South Africa has such negligible trade with Russia and much higher trade volumes with several other countries, including the US. Others point out that Russia's portrayal of being anti-imperialist and anti-West appeals to many African countries following their history of oppression by Western nations.
Controversially, South Africa also allowed Russian billionaires to dock their superyachts in Cape Town's harbour. Since then, the government has also hosted warships and other sanctioned vessels at the port. It recently raised eyebrows when it announced plans for a joint naval exercise with China and Russia in late February this year, coinciding with the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine.
And the controversies haven't ended there. The South African government has now launched an investigation into American accusations that a Russian ship collected weapons from a naval base near Cape Town earlier this year, writing in a statement that: "The President [Cyril Ramaphosa] decided to establish the enquiry because of the seriousness of the allegations, the extent of public interest and the impact of this matter on South Africa's international relations."
Sri Lanka has been facing its most severe financial crisis in seven decades after it defaulted on its debt in 2022, and inflation soared to a peak of 90%. Spiralling costs for necessities such as food, fuel, and medicines have led to desperation as citizens can't meet their basic needs. Protests and violence have broken out across the country, leading to former-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa's resignation in July last year.
In an effort to secure Sri Lanka's fuel supply and quell tensions, former president Rajapaksa (pictured here at the COP26 summit) wanted to import more Russian oil and asked for Putin's help. "I requested an offer of credit support to import fuel," Rajapaksa tweeted, adding: "We unanimously agreed that strengthening bilateral relations in sectors such as tourism, trade & culture was paramount in reinforcing the friendship our two nations share."
Moscow has since agreed to assist the South Asian country with the construction of two mini nuclear power plants, and has hinted at the possibility of building more.
Many other countries continue to maintain their trading relationships with Russia, including perennial ally Armenia and, perhaps more unexpectedly, Indonesia, whose leader Joko Widodo met with President Putin in June 2022.
According to Putin, trade between the two nations has grown by 42% in the past year. Another country that's firming up trade ties is Israel, which has seen its exports to Russia grow in recent months.
Several governments have imposed sanctions on Russia since it invaded Ukraine in late February 2022, including the US, the EU, Japan, the UK, Canada, South Korea, Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Taiwan, Singapore, New Zealand, and the Bahamas. The tough measures include oil and gold embargoes, export bans on critical technologies and oligarch asset freezes. Yet these wide-ranging sanctions miss out some key industries and commodities.
One notable commodity that falls outside the scope of EU sanctions is atomic fuel. This led to embarrassment for the German government in September 2022 when it was forced to allow a shipment of Russian uranium destined for French nuclear power plants to be processed in Germany. Admitting that the German state had "no legal grounds" to prevent the import of uranium from Russia, a spokesman for the Environment Ministry revealed the government's frustration: "You can imagine that we view such uranium shipments very critically due to the Russian invasion, but also because of Germany's exit from nuclear in general."
Other countries have also found it hard to shut off Russian trade completely. A report by London-based company Earthsight found that an estimated $1.2 billion (£965m) worth of Russian plywood has travelled through American ports since the start of the war in Ukraine, despite the government's attempts to sever business with Putin. "U.S. importers cannot be sure their products are not directly [fuelling] the Russian war machine", Earthsight concluded.