Dutch companies are defying sanctions against Russia by exporting goods to neighbouring countries, sometimes using false papers, research by the statistics agency CBS and the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen has found.

The CBS recorded a 74% increase in the value of exports of sanctioned goods to seven countries labelled “high risk” in 2022 and a 90% rise in 2023, compared to the average for the four previous years.

The trend coincided with an 86% drop in the value of sanctioned goods exported directly to Russia in 2023, the year after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.

Many of the goods were exported by small startup businesses with no previous track record of trading in sanctioned items before 2022. But more than 500 Dutch-based multinationals also shipped goods to countries bordering Russia, such as Armenia, Mongolia, Turkey and Kazachstan.

“Although this form of sanctions evasion is not directly visible in the CBS statistics, research can be carried out into which countries have seen a disproportionate increase in exports of sanctioned products,” the CBS said.

Exports of tractors, diggers and excavators from Turkey to Russia increased dramatically in the second half of 2022, the figures show. Russia also received more exports of fruit, electrical machines and cars.

Court cases have highlighted individual cases of sanctions-busting, such as a Russian-Dutch entrepreneur who was convicted in October of illegally exporting goods to Russia through third countries.

The man sent 10 consignments of electronics and computer parts to companies in Kyrgyzstan, Kazachstan and Uzbekistan, which are in a customs union with Russia. He falsified documents using Photoshop to give the impression that the recipients had been banned from sending the goods on to Russia.

He was jailed for 15 months and given a 240-hour community service order by the district court in Rotterdam.