EU sanctions against Russia – The Russian Reader

The Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) has called for increased economic pressure on Russia as well as secondary sanctions on companies supporting its war efforts in a new report, released Monday, timed with the Munich Security Conference kickoff. The public policy institution states that the former U.S. administration’s foreign policy had been too cautious, resulting in a “war of attrition that neither side can win.”

Despite heavy sanctions on gas and oil, the EU has continued to buy commodities such as fertilizer from Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Data from Eurostat shows that some 3.9 million tonnes of Russian fertilizers were imported to the EU in 2023 and 3.7 million tonnes were imported in the first nine months of 2024. In July 2024, 574,000 tonnes of fertilizers were imported to the EU, up 50 percent from July 2021, the summer before the war.

Last month, the European Commission finally proposed raising tariffs on fertilizers from the current 6.5 percent in proportion to the value to 100 percent in three years. If implemented, this means Russian fertilizers will likely continue to be imported until 2026. The proposed tariffs would bring a tonne of nitrogenous fertilizers to the sum of €315 and other fertilizers up to €430 per tonne. The measure is intended to support domestic production, allow for diversification of supply and cut off a financial flow to Russia’s economy. Until now, the EU has been resistant to placing sanctions on agricultural products from Russia due to global food security concerns.

While the proposal includes protective measures, European farmers warn of the risks associated with increased production costs as well as concerns over whether domestic production will be able to meet demand in time.

Source: Anna Fleck, “EU Has Continued to Buy Russian Fertilizer Throughout War,” Statista, 12 February 2025

Every day Russian fertilisers move from the Vainikkala border crossing point to the Port of HaminaKotka in southeast Finland, where the major Russian fertiliser company Fosagro [sic] operates.

For food security reasons, the EU has allowed the import of Russian fertilisers since Moscow invaded Ukraine. This is why a freight train owned by North Rail Oy, a subsidiary of the Finnish logistics company Nurminen Logistics, makes daily transports of Russian fertilisers from the eastern border to the southeastern port.

These fertiliser-filled trains continue to run despite Russia’s nearly three-year war in Ukraine and the European Commission’s recent decision to impose import tariffs on Russian fertilisers in the bloc.

The Kremlin is now generating record-high revenues from fertiliser exports. Seven of the world’s ten largest fertiliser exporters are Russian companies, which collectively earned an estimated $1.4 billion last year.

Fosagro, with its presence in Kotka, is one of the world’s largest producers of phosphate-based fertilisers. It is backed by Andrei Guryev, a Russian oligarch and Vladimir Putin ally. He stepped down from the company’s leadership in 2022 after the EU sanctioned his son. Later, both the US and UK imposed sanctions on Guryev himself.

According to business magazine Forbes, Guryev and his family still own nearly half of Fosagro.

Yle asked how a sanctioned fertiliser oligarch’s exports are still flowing via Finland.

While Finnish Customs director general Sami Rakshit declined to comment on individual companies, he said that if a sanctioned individual holds a controlling stake in a company, the sanctions will also apply to the company.

At the same time, if Customs cannot demonstrate that the product, person, or company is subject to sanctions, the agency will not intervene.

“Fertiliser transport through the Port of Kotka is possible primarily for food security reasons,” Rakshit told Yle.

“When sanctions are being circumvented, shell company arrangements are often complex, making it very difficult to identify the true beneficiaries,” he added.

Russian connections

At the Port of HaminaKotka, Finnish firms Rauanheimo and Fertilog load the fertiliser onto ships. According to information obtained by Yle, Fertilog’s subcontractors employ Russian-background Finnish citizens and workers from the Baltic states.

The chairman of Fertilog Group’s board is Aleksei Sladkov, a Russian national living in Austria. The rest of the company’s leadership also has Russian-sounding names, though Yle does not know their nationality or whether they hold Finnish citizenship.

Fertilog has stated that it accounted for ten percent of the Finnish port’s traffic in 2020.

Most of the Russian fertilisers passing through Kotka are exported to North African countries and South America. Some also travel to other European countries, as long as they are not subject to sanctions.

In addition to Finland, Russia also exports fertilisers through Estonia and other Baltic countries.

In communicating with Fertilog via email, the company said its focus is on business and does not take a position on politics.

“We only handle fertilisers that are not subject to sanctions,” the company said via email.

The firm also claimed to have invested 80 million euros in the HaminaKotka port over the past 15 years.

“We’re a significant taxpayer and job creator in Kotka, both directly and indirectly,” the company stated.

According to Fertilog, the fertilisers they handle are exported to developing countries, where they play a crucial role in global food security, as well as to EU countries, where they contribute to the EU’s preparedness and security supply.

Source: “Russian fertiliser exports continue flowing through Finland,” Yle News, 11 February 2025. Thanks to Delovoi Peterburg for the heads-up.

PhosAgro freight cars. Photo: Pyotr Kovalyov/Delovoi Peterburg

PhosAgro is a Russian chemical holding company producing fertilizer, phosphates and feed phosphates. The company is based in Moscow, Russia, and its subsidiaries include Apatit, a company based in the Murmansk Region and engaged in the extraction of apatite rock. The company is Europe’s largest producer of phosphate-based fertilisers.

Ownership history

The original owner of PhosAgro’s assets (most notably Apatit, a Soviet-era mining company) was exiled Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky via his company, Menatep. In 2003, Khodorkovsky was arrested for tax evasion and fraud; the charges against him were ostensibly connected to Menatep’s purchase of shares in Apatit. However, some have seen the charges as punishment for publicly clashing with Vladimir Putin.

During Khordorkovsky’s trial, the state seized Menatep’s stake in Apatit. In 2004, Andrey Guryev, who at the time ran Apatit on behalf of Khodorkovsky’s Menatep and was also a Russian senator [sic], wrote a message to Khodorkovsky in prison to convince him to sell his remaining 50% stake in PhosAgro to Guryev. Khodorkovsky sold his shares to Guryev for a low price.

In July 2011, PhosAgro raised $538 million in a London IPO.

In 2012, PhosAgro paid $344 million at a state tender to buy back a 26.7% share in Apatit, bringing the company’s ownership to 76%.

As of 2012, Andrey Guryev and his family owned 5.47% of PhosAgro via various trusts.

PhosAgro is 19.35% owned by Vladimir Litvinenko, who oversaw Vladimir Putin’s plagiarized doctoral thesis in 1996.

In 2022, the company’s revenue amounted to 164 billion rubles.

Source: “PhosAgro,” Wikipedia

In early 2015, current CEO Andrei Guryev Jr, Andrey Guryev’s son, was reported as saying, “PhosAgro is the most profitable phosphate fertilizer company in the world.”

PhosAgro is structured so that Guryev and his family are recipients of a trust, rather than outright ownership in their names, though Evgenia Guryev, Guryev’s wife, owns 4.82% of PhosAgro in her own name.

In July 2016, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$4.3 billion.

He is vice president of the Russian Union of Chemists.

[…]

Guryev is married to Evgenia and they have two children, Andrey Guryev, Jr. and Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov. Andrey Guryev, Jr, is CEO of PhosAgro. Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov is married to hedge fund manager Alexei Motlokhov, they have twin sons, and live next door in Highgate.

The Guryevs own Witanhurst in Highgate, London’s second largest house after Buckingham Palace, through an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands. He owns the five-storey penthouse of St George Wharf Tower in London. Guryev has never given an interview to the press.

Guryev owned a yacht, Alfa Nero, through an offshore company which is planned to be auctioned off in Antigua and Barbuda due to his sanctions.

Source: “Andrey Guryev,” Wikipedia

Igor Levit performing Erik Satie’s “Vexations” (short edit)

On 30 May 2020, Igor Levit performed all 840 repetitions of Vexations at the B-sharp Studio, Berlin. The performance streamed on Periscope, Twitter and other platforms, including on The New Yorker‘s website. Levit said the recital was in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, his reaction to which he characterised as a “silent scream” (stumme Schrei). The 840 sheets of music were sold individually to assist out-of-work musicians.

Source: “Vexations” (Wikipedia)

Finland will ban entry to passenger vehicles registered in Russia starting Saturday, the Nordic country’s top diplomat announced Friday afternoon.

“Our decision is for the ban to come into force after midnight,” Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen was quoted as saying by the state broadcaster Yle.

“We estimate the new rules will significantly reduce traffic on the border between Finland and Russia,” she added.

EU citizens and “their immediate circle,” as well as diplomats and those traveling for humanitarian reasons, would be exempt from the restrictions, according to Yle.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia issued no-exception entry bans this week for Russian-registered cars after the European Commission clarified that existing regulations prohibit the import or transfer of goods originating in Russia.

Estonian and Lithuanian officials later suggested that cars with Russian license plates would be confiscated if they refused to re-register or leave.

Finland’s Valtonen ruled out confiscations in her country, telling Yle that vehicles with Russian license plates would have to leave Finland by March 16, 2024.

Supporters of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny urged Baltic leaders to lift the vehicle ban on claims that they harm Russian war exiles and play into the Kremlin’s narrative of anti-Russian feelings in the West.

Moscow has accused the EU of “racism” for its ban on passenger vehicles, while former President Dmitry Medvedev called for a suspension of diplomatic relations.

Finland, a member of the European Union, joined NATO this year, thus doubling the length of the U.S.-led military alliance’s border with Russia.

Finland’s neighbor Norway, which has joined the EU’s sanctions against Russia despite not being a member of the bloc, said it was also considering banning entry to Russian-registered vehicles.

Source: “Finland Follows Baltics, Bans Entry to Russian Vehicles,” Moscow Times, 15 September 2023. The emphasis is mine. Judging by the outsized reaction to this news by “anti-war Russians” in the press and on social media, the proposed vehicle entry ban vexes them more than the endless repetitions on violent death, widespread destruction, and genocide in Ukraine, unleashed by their country’s now-572-day-long invasion of their former neighbor. ||| TRR

This is an actual headline:

“Nobody is safe from Russia’s wave of re-nationalization.”

This how and what the former “Fennomans” from the newspaper Delovoi Peterburg write about Finland today (in their morning newsletter)—without a hint of shame, so to speak:

Finland is selling its house in St. Petersburg, and the Central Bank is struggling with the fall of the ruble. Such are the economic news in St. Petersburg this week.

How much does the “Finnish House” cost? The issue is very difficult, given Finland’s unfriendly attitude towards us and the sanctions. Basically, with the sale of the building on Bolshaya Konyushennaya, which belonged to Finland, an entire era of good neighborliness between our countries ends.

Source: Thomas Campbell (Facebook), 15 September 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

Not all attempted performances of this work have been successful. In 1970, Australian pianist Peter Evans decided to abandon a solo performance of the piece after five-hundred and ninety-five repetitions because he felt that “evil thoughts” were overtaking him and observed “strange creatures emerging from the sheet music.”

Source: “Vexations” (Wikipedia)

Quiver, quaver, flutter, squirm, twitch
Shimmy, wobble, shake, convulse, twist
Tremble, jerk, shudder, vibrate, writhe
Jiggle, bobble, sway, waggle, die

Source: Annelyse Gelman, Vexations (University of Chicago Press, 2023), p. 40

Colleagues, I may have missed something, but how do Finland, Poland, etc., make the case for the reasonableness of banning cars with Russian license plates from entering?

I mean, how does this contribute to the stated goals of combating military aggression?

Source: A “friends only” social media post by a Russian acquaintance, 16 September 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

We demand that Western leaders end the policy of avoiding “escalation of the conflict.” It only allows Putin to blackmail the West with the very “escalation,” hoping to force him to “geopolitical capitulation.” Any international legal order is maintained only as long as its violator meets a collective rebuff. While his co-founders are ready to fight for him.

We demand a fundamental expansion of military assistance to Ukraine up to the direct participation of NATO troops in hostilities. Ukraine should receive binding security guarantees now, not after the end of the war.

We urge Western leaders to put aside fears about the possible collapse of the Russian Federation as a result of the fall of the regime. None of the “painful consequences” of this will outweigh the danger of preserving the imperial state, which will reproduce aggressiveness and revanchism. Either Russia will become confederate, democratic and “pro-Western,” returning to its European roots, or it must disappear as an integral entity.

Source: Paul Goble, “‘Victory for Ukraine; Freedom for Russia’ — Four Russian Activists Call for a World without Putin and Putinism,” Window on Eurasia (New Series), 14 September 2023

The space between good and bad began to diminish
Daughter studied botany while I analyzed the transference
Over the PA someone said, And the wisdom to know the difference
We integrated our sensory impressions into a coherent scene
Her hair was getting long, her eyes were turning green
As for wisdom, we didn’t know what to do with it

There was a time before and after thinking of death
As the worst thing that could happen to a person
Bodies were interred and then exhumed again
Satisfactory, said Hank, which meant the opposite
We had overestimated our capacity for wonder
We had underestimated our capacity for pain

Source: Annelyse Gelman, Vexations (University of Chicago Press, 2023), p. 40. The book has been longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award for Poetry in the United States.