According to an investigation by Reuters, based on data on car registrations and interviews with market participants, China has become an important center for importing Western, Japanese, and Korean brand cars into Russia that left the country after 2022. Journalists found that tens of thousands of cars are arriving in Russia, circumventing Western sanctions and the obligations of automakers.
The main way to bypass these restrictions has been the use of a scheme involving "used" cars that effectively have zero mileage. Dealers in China register new cars as sold, then reclassify them as used and export them to Russia. This allows intermediaries to avoid the need to obtain permissions from the companies' headquarters. According to Reuters, by 2025, almost half of the 130,000 sanctioned brand cars (such as Toyota, Mazda, Mercedes, and BMW) sold in Russia were produced at factories in China or imported through Chinese intermediaries.
Statistics show that last year, Russians purchased nearly 30,000 Toyota cars, of which 24,000 were assembled in China. A similar situation is observed in the German luxury segment: more than 20,000 out of 47,000 registered cars in Russia from brands like BMW, Mercedes, and Volkswagen Group had Chinese origins. Even models like the Mercedes G-Class, which are produced only in Europe, are often delivered to Moscow through Chinese trading networks.
Despite the statements from global automakers such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW that they strictly control supplies and prohibit them to Russia, companies acknowledge that combating unofficial exports is a challenging task. Experts emphasize that due to the oversaturation of the Chinese market, local dealers are interested in selling excess inventory through intermediaries. At the same time, authorities in the EU, US, and Japan continue investigations, trying to close loopholes in the sanctions, but completely stopping the flow of "gray" imports through third countries has not yet been achieved.
