• Kazakhstan places stricter trade control brought by sanctions against Russia.
• Russian trade is to be regulated by the Kazakhstan government by adding requiring additional documents on Russian imports.
• Kazakhstan is one of Russia's largest trading partners and is allegedly one of the avenues to import sanctioned goods and technology.

Kazakhstan recently added more requirements to trade with Russia that have happened recently. Both nations have brisk trade impacted as the west's attempts to impose big sanctions failed.

Kazakhstan Resorts to Sanctions Due to Western Pressure

The government announced last Monday, March 27, amendments that firms should comply with punitive measures continuing trade with Moscow. Allegations that it is a path where Russian firms have ties with local companies to send sanctioned goods through, reported Euractiv.

It is standing as Moscow's major partner in trade was impacted as the west imposed questionable sanctions on the Russian economy ($2.1 trillion), which Moscow had shifted gears. After February 24, it followed an extensive rerouting of tech, goods to defeat sanctions authored by Washington, noted Reuters.

These two countries are part of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which has five members as part of the Eurasian bloc. There is a 7,591-kilometer border with no customs checks that are imposed for now.

When the US-led west decided to slam sanctions to slow down the economic engine of Moscow, it instead did the opposite effect when the Kazakhs bought more and resold them to Russian firms that made money for them, disregarding the sanctions that forced the west to tighten its control but somehow a bypass was done.

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Sanctions on Russian Trade

Sanctions were finally recognized by Astana when it announced last Monday that a new guideline would be in place in April. These changes will place all exports in the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union to lessen the underground trade, cited Swiss Info.

It will prevent Russian firms' use of other entities to acquire and transfer the goods without detection. Another is to avoid another case of the west getting shamed by those willing to help Russian businesses.

Even as the sanctions were in place after February 24 last year, that would prove futile to tamper down Russian earnings as the west fell into economic crises. Trade between Astana and Moscow went up a quarter in 2022. When Turkey blocked parallel imports led to more demands for such goods that the Kazakhs saw as a golden opportunity to earn.

All these banned items saw the development of avenues that the west never imagined would happen. The west declined even third countries to stop helping to shame their efforts and failed sanctions.

Passing through the Kazakh border remarked an outlet was bearings, plane parts, and even rare earth metals, leading to harsher western demands.

The US visited these central Asian states to urge them to recognize sanctions and even said the US would help. Kazakh had no sanctions, but Uzbekistan was hit by them, as mentioned by Eurasianet.

One of the criticisms of sanctions is the legality and how the US and its allies arbitrarily apply them. Not all nations want to impose or recognize such actions that are supported mostly by cohorts of Washington.

Kazakhstan did impose more requirements to send items to Russia, but how effective these sanctions would be is yet to be seen.

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