The Share Of Trade With The Outside World In The Russian Economy Has Fallen To The Levels Of The Last Years Of The USSR
- 10.02.2026, 21:25
History repeats itself.
Increasing Western sanctions and the Kremlin's "fortress under siege" policy continue to erode economic bridges between Russia and the outside world, reports The Moscow Times.
The share of trade with the outside world in Russia's GDP has become the lowest in more than 30 years and has fallen back to the levels of the last years of the Soviet Union.
The share of exports in GDP fell from 22.2 percent to 17.8 percent, which "has become an absolute minimum," according to Finam economist Olga Belenkaya. And the share of imports fell from 17.8% to 15.2%, almost repeating the worst value of 2022, which was also an anti-record in modern history.
For comparison: in the pre-war years, exports reached 25-30% of Russian GDP, and in the late 1990s and early 2000s this value exceeded 40%. The share of imports since the early 2010s has held around 20%. Now these indicators correspond to the levels of the USSR in the last years of its existence: thus, the share of exports in Soviet GDP was 18.2% in 1990 and 13.3% in 1991. And the share of imports was 17.9% and 13% respectively, according to the World Bank.
"With the growing sanctions pressure, restrictions on the availability of imports and the government's course to stimulate import substitution, the Russian economy is now less connected to the global economy than it will be until 2022," Belenkaya explains.
According to the Federal Customs Service, revenues from Russian exports of goods abroad last year sagged 4% and renewed the lowest since the pandemic - $418.3 billion. Raw materials exports fell 15% to $225 billion, while non-resource non-energy exports totaled $150 billion, a quarter less than the pre-war level. Imports were down not 3% ($278 billion), and trade with Europe - once the Kremlin's largest economic partner - shrank to 1990s levels: $57.4 billion in exports and $72.3 billion in imports.
Ended in severe economic isolation, Vladimir Putin is making ambitious plans, promising that Russia will "produce everything by itself" - from computers and medicine to clothes and airplanes. By 2030, according to the Kremlin's plans, 60% of ships, almost 100% of machine tools, and 80% of software for industry and banks should be domestic. In six years, Putin has demanded that aircraft factories produce nearly a thousand passenger airliners to replace the deteriorating Boeing and Airbus fleets, which cannot be upgraded or repaired because of sanctions.
But even officials realize that any domestic production for import substitution will be limited, says Alexandra Prokopenko, a research fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. The Kremlin's goals look more like "Putin's fantasy than a realistic plan," she believes.