“Despite the embargo, luxury items still cross Russia’s borders and remain accessible to the wealthiest Russians,” the outlet states.
As noted in the material, the reason why the sanctions did not work is known – it is about parallel imports.
“Obviously, the luxury items could have been bought by a company based in a country that continues to trade with Russia, Armenia, Turkey, in particular the United Arab Emirates, and then re-exported to Moscow,” Radiofrance said.
According to an expert interviewed by the radio station, despite the political pressure, the big brands still have a commercial vision of Russia as a very interesting market.
As the head of the Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Bulavin, said earlier, the volume of parallel imports of goods into Russia since the beginning of the mechanism in May has already amounted to more than $20 billion. In the first place, it concerns automobiles, machine tools, equipment, technological lines, and light industrial goods.
Subsequently, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce announced that the retail chains had already started shipments from abroad for the parallel import of alcohol.
