Thread by @EdConwaySky

🚨This is the story of how UK & EU goods are STILL going into Russia in vast quantities, despite sanctions.
Of how the economic war waged by the G7 is failing.
Of how I witnessed sanctions rules broken in plain sight.
But above all else it’s the story of a chart... 🧵

Here’s the chart in question. It shows you UK car exports to Russia.
And there’s a clear story here.
Look: when Russia invaded Ukraine, the UK (and for that matter most of the G7) imposed sanctions on Russia. So exports of cars to Russia stopped.
End of story, right?

Wrong, because now look at what happened to exports of UK cars to countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
At precisely the same moment as sanctions were imposed on Russia, exports of these cars to Russian neighbours suddenly ROSE.

& not just the UK.
Indeed, there are even more cars going from Germany to Russian neighbour states. If you follow @robin_j_brooks you already know this.
Interestingly while UK cars are mostly going to Azerbaijan German ones are mostly going to Kazakhstan

https://x.com/robin_j_brooks/status/1836053476419227973

Except, of course, they’re not.
Most economists & sanctions experts presume cars aren’t actually ending up in Azerbaijan or Georgia. They get shuffled around the Caucasus before being funnelled into Russia via the backdoor.
But, and this is CRITICAL, there's NO data on this

That’s critical because the lack of a data trail connecting the cars to Russia allows the UK motor industry @SMMT to insist it’s not happening - that most of those cars do indeed end up in Azerbaijan.
Here’s what they said re this data a few months ago

https://x.com/EdConwaySky/status/1783728498994987137

So. The car industry says: nothing to see here.
Just an economic boom in the Caucasus. Which has also btw suddenly discovered an appetite for drone parts and radar equipment and all the other “dual use” goods sanctioned and banned from Russia. Funny that…

https://x.com/EdConwaySky/status/1760369587051245983

But back to that chart…
Since there’s no data trail connecting these cars with Russia, that allows groups like the @smmt to insist there’s no case to answer. If you follow me you’ll already be familiar with this somewhat implausible argument

https://x.com/EdConwaySky/status/1769786100325704156

🚗All of which is to say, if you could prove UK cars ARE being shifted into Russia, it would show these sanctions ARE indeed being broken and that the motor industry’s defence is nonsense.
If it’s happening on a large scale it would show this is not just a fringe activity.

A few weeks ago we received a tip-off. Some pictures from border between Russia and Georgia, showing a host of luxury cars, waiting to cross. Those cars included many Porsches, Mercedes, BMWs and two Range Rovers. British cars. It seemed to be the proof we were looking for.

But we needed to verify it.
Were those cars ACTUALLY there? How were they being transferred to Russia without showing up in the data?
So I did something unusual (for a data nerd)… I shut my laptop & booked a flight to Georgia.
A week or so later I arrived at the Russian border.

It’s a beautiful place - right in the heart of the Caucasus Mountain range. But once you arrive at the border you notice two things.
1. a massive, long line of trucks lining up, waiting to pass across into Russia (very few coming the other way).
2. LOTS of very expensive cars

There were Porsches, Mercedes, Maybachs, BMWs, high end Toyota Land Cruisers. Seriously expensive cars. Mostly German. But those Range Rovers our contact had sent us weren’t there.
So where had they gone?
@aoifeyourell & I did some investigating.

Milling around the car park were quite a few men.
Most didn’t want to talk but some explained what was happening:
One man picks up the cars (mostly one at a time) and loads them onto a truck. Sometimes they come straight from the ports, sometimes from elsewhere in the Caucasus.

They take them to the border and drop them off in one of two makeshift car parks. There they wait until the paperwork is done. That paperwork is usually carried out remotely by a separate broker. Sometimes it’s done in Armenia. Eventually transit numberplates are issued.

Brokers tell customs officials the cars are destined not for Russia but for Kyrgyzstan. But, as this YouTuber says, “everyone understands perfectly well… that this car will go to Russia and will remain there." EVERYONE knows what’s going on.

The rest is simple.
A middleman drives the car over the border, usually saying he owns it.
He leaves it in a car park on the other side, where another carrier will come along to transport it to its final destination in Russia.
Then he crosses back over to move another car across.

We witnessed this happening at the border.
It’s a well-oiled, industrial process - happening in plain sight.
Unlike the radar/drone parts going in in trucks, you SEE these sanctioned cars being shifted over.
And each man doing each stage of the job has plausible deniability.

But the net result is to move sanctioned goods quite smoothly and effectively into Russia.
And because the cars are moved one at a time, supposedly by their “owners” - they don’t show up in the customs data. Allowing everyone, inc the @smmt, to pretend it’s not happening.

But it IS happening. On a massive scale. Car exports are not decelerating. Nor are exports of dual use goods.
And crucially this is just ONE border post. As far as we can tell, something similar is happening across much of the Caucasus & Central Asia. It’s a BIG business!

But while I witnessed this all happening with my own eyes, I didn’t see any British cars.
Were the @smmt right after all?
Was our tip-off wrong, or had the cars already passed into Russia?
After a couple of days we headed back down the mountain towards Tbilisi.

But as we neared the Georgian capital, suddenly we spotted one car carrier, then another, then another. A convoy. And among those cars being taken up towards Russia were two Range Rovers. So we turned our car around and gave chase…

We followed for more than 2hrs, up the winding road.
Were they going to Russia too?
Were we witnessing this sanctions-busting trade route in action? It felt like it.
Eventually we reached the border. They stopped at the same transit car park from where cars are taken into Russia.

By now it was the middle of the night. The car park was buzzing - this was clearly peak time for delivering sanctioned cars. Alongside the Range Rovers were some Mercedes G-Wagons and a Lamborghini.
All V expensive. All sanctioned. All without numberplates and waiting to cross.

We checked the VIN numbers on the Range Rovers. Both of them were brand new, manufactured THIS year, 2024, in Solihull. UK-manufactured luxury cars; banned from being exported into Russia. Here they were, about to pass into Russia.

These cars won’t show up in any export data, but in a week or two they will almost certainly be in a Moscow showroom or a home in Russia.
Far from preventing these cars getting into Russia, sanctions have simply created a slight adjustment in HOW they are brought into Russia.

Everyone knows what’s going on here.
Everyone knows about the sanctions. Everyone knows this is the way they are avoided. And it's pretty easy. And lucrative.
The men carrying the cars joke about it.
“Where do you think they’re going,” said one, when we asked him. “Paris?”

This below-the radar system allows the UK car industry to pretend it isn’t happening. Because it’s not in the data.
But it IS happening.
& cars are only the most visible example. Just one dimension in a bigger story - of how sanctions are not doing what we were told they wld do.

This year on @skynews I've documented how:
- We send weapon parts to Russia via Central Asia.
- We use Indian refineries to launder Russian oil and turn it into the gasoline in our cars & kerosene in our jets.
- We import Russian gas into Europe on ships run by British companies.

The response from govt and business is invariably the same: we are trying our best. Below are statements from govt and from Jaguar Land Rover, who make Range Rovers. But these efforts are not preventing sanctions from being avoided at an industrial scale.

Here's my full @SkyNews story on this👇
An investigation I've been working on for months with @aoifeyourell. This long read provides some of the colour and detail.
PS we have more stories in the pipeline...
news.sky.com/story/brand-ne…

@SkyNews @aoifeyourell 🎥 Here's our film about this disturbing and depressing phenomenon👇
The culmination of months of work together with @aoifeyourell.
When it comes to Russia sanctions there's a massive gap between the theory & the reality. Do watch if you have a moment