Shipments of Russian cartridges and their components to the United States in 2021 set a record in monetary terms since the early 1990s. For ten months of this year, American companies imported Russian cartridges for firearms worth $ 157.9 million, RBC reports with reference to the foreign trade data of the US Census Bureau (an analogue of Rosstat).
The growth in the volume of supplies was not prevented by Washington’s sanctions against the import of small arms and ammunition from Russia. The previous record was recorded in 2016 ($ 148 million for the entire year). He was beaten thanks to deliveries in October 2021 in the amount of $ 15.4 million. Compared to the figures for the current year, in 2020, the import of Russian cartridges to the United States amounted to about $ 120 million.
From the UN Comtrade database, it follows that the import of Russian cartridges to the United States in January-October 2021 in physical terms exceeded 7.7 thousand tons compared to 5.2 thousand for the whole of 2020. In 2016, the import of cartridges and their parts by weight was about 6 thousand tons.According to UN data, over 94% of all Russian cartridges are exported to the USA, EU countries ($ 2.7 million in 2020), Canada ($ 1.5 million) and Thailand ($ 0.6 million).
In August, the United States imposed new sanctions against Russia over the alleged poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. They were imposed on the import of certain types of Russian firearms, as well as on the export of nuclear and missile products and technologies.
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