British carmakers appear to have continued selling hundreds of millions of pounds of luxury vehicles to Russia even after the invasion of Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions, exporting the cars indirectly via former Soviet states, Sky News analysis suggests.
While direct British car exports to Russia have fallen to zero following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that collapse has been followed by a corresponding increase in car exports to countries neighbouring Russia, most notably Azerbaijan.
Our analysis, based on official HMRC trade data, finds that the UK exported £273m of vehicles to Azerbaijan last year, a 1,860% increase compared with the five-year period preceding the invasion.
Not only is the increase in exports to Azerbaijan unprecedented, it is of a similar magnitude to the annual car exports to Russia in the two years before the imposition of sanctions, which averaged £330m.
Alongside the UK HMRC statistics, Sky News has analysed UN international trade data which shows that over precisely the same period that Britain recorded an…
