Crossroads Asia | Economy | Central Asia

EU Aims Sanctions ‘Anti-circumvention Tool’ at Kyrgyzstan

The EU’s tool – branded as a “last resort measure” – is being used for the first time to cut off export of certain high-tech goods to Kyrgyzstan.

With the European Union’s 20th package of sanctions against Russia, adopted on April 22, Kyrgyzstan has earned a dubious accolade as the first country to be targeted by the EU’s “anti-circumvention tool.”

On April 23, coincidentally, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov stopped by Moscow for a working visit, including a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, the EU has issued successive packages of sanctions in an effort to pressure Moscow toward peace, or at the very least make continued war increasingly painful.

In the EU’s 11th package of sanctions, adopted in June 2023, the European Commission introduced what it called an “anti-circumvention tool” designed to allow the EU to “restrict the sale, supply, transfer or export of specified sanctioned goods and technology to certain third countries” considered to be at high risk of providing pathways for the circumvention of sanctions.

“This new ‘anti-circumvention’ tool will be an exceptional and last resort measure when other individual measures and outreach by the EU to concerned third countries have been insufficient to prevent circumvention,” the European Commission stated.

In the just-approved 20th package of sanctions, the European Commission says it is activated the tool for the first time, citing the “systematic and persistent failure” of the Kyrgyz government “to prevent the sale, supply, transfer, or export to Russia of certain machine tools and certain telecommunication equipment imported from the EU and used for the manufacturing of drones and missiles in Russia.”

This decision is not necessarily a surprise.

In February, EU’s sanctions envoy, David O’Sullivan, laid out European concerns about Kyrgyzstan’s role in re-exporting sanctioned goods to Russia during a visit to Bishkek. O’Sullivan told reporters that trade flows suggest that some goods “are being imported into Kyrgyzstan with the sole purpose of being re-exported to Russia, in breach of our sanctions.” Specifically, he mentioned radio equipment and machine tools produced in Europe and imported into Kyrgyzstan with the exclusive purpose of re-export to........

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