Eurostat: 89% drop in EU imports from Russia between Q1 2022 and Q2 2025

The European Union’s various import and export restrictions on several products resulted in a 61 per cent decline in exports to Russia and an 89 per cent drop in imports from Russia between the first quarter of 2022 and Q2 2025, EU statistics agency Eurostat said on August 28.

In Q2 2025 compared with the previous quarter, imports from Russia decreased while exports to Russia increased.

Consequently the EU’s trade balance with Russia, which had always been in deficit, turned to a small surplus of 0.5 billion euro, Eurostat said.

Looking at the changes in Russia’s shares in extra-EU trade, both exports and imports dropped considerably below the levels prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s share in the extra-EU exports fell from 3.2 per cent in Q1 2022 to 1.2 per cent in Q2 2025.

Over the same period, the share of extra-EU imports from Russia fell from 9.3 per cent to 1.1 per cent.

Looking at quarterly data, the EU’s total trade balance with Russia is strongly correlated with the balance for energy products, Eurostat said.

High prices for energy products in 2021 and 2022 caused a considerable trade deficit for energy products, peaking at 42.8 billion euro in Q2 2022.

However, import restrictions and falling energy prices significantly reduced this trade deficit to 4.2 billion euro in Q2 2025, the statistics agency said.

(Photo: Kgbo)