Russian customs data for 2025 lacks records on shipments across 180 categories of technically complex goods - mostly electronics and industrial equipment — The Insider has found. Since importers appear to have kept operating, it looks like shipments are simply no longer being entered into the customs database. Authorities are trying to obscure “gray” imports and shield suppliers of critical goods, especially for the military-industrial complex, from new sanctions. A side effect could be serious problems for public administration and planning, as Rosstat’s figures will no longer be reliable.
Russian authorities have long learned to hide socially important information. EGRUL, the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, restricted access to data on owners of “strategically important” companies. The Russia's official cadastre and cartography agency, Rosreestr, limited access to assets held by corrupt officials; and years ago the Russian State Library began restricting access to certain officials’ dissertations over fears of plagiarism exposure. This appears to be the first time the state is directly deleting data that meaningfully affects the accuracy of official statistics. According to The Insider, in 2025 Russian customs stopped recording a significant number of product categories in its centralized database.
By all appearances, this is the largest case of “registry sabotage” in Russia’s history.
The Insider previously reported that Iranian Shahed drones were labeled as “boats,” though such cases were more the exception than the rule. Now, items are neither renamed nor reclassified into other categories — they simply become invisible.
That’s evident from reports by firms that used to specialize in very narrow product lines, such as microchips. Instead of showing substantial turnover in some other category (for example, registering microchips as “matches” or “nails”), these companies have disappeared from customs radars altogether.
At the same time, Federal Tax Service data shows no signs that these companies are shutting down, ceasing operations, or significantly reducing turnover.
In 2024, Russia imported $22 billion worth of sanctioned products across sectors such as machinery, electronics and metallurgy.
These goods have both civilian and military uses. As The Insider has repeatedly shown, even seemingly civilian items now end up on the battlefield. For instance, “lithium-ion batteries” are a key military commodity, primarily used in drones. Machine centers and lathes, as The Insider’s series of reports has shown, are also in high demand among Russian defense enterprises.
In 2025, the composition of leading import lines in these sanction-restricted sectors changed drastically. Entire categories vanished from Russia’s import data, including computer hardware blocks, routers, integrated circuits, video cameras, radio components, frequency generators, radar systems, navigation equipment, electric motors, equipment for manufacturing integrated circuits, and many other electronics. Drilling machines, industrial furnaces, and some other machinery also disappeared — roughly 180 positions in total. Reported imports for these categories now show zero. In every instance, these are items restricted for export to Russia by the EU or the United States.
In the first three months of 2025 alone, Russia imported more than $5.7 billion in sanctioned goods.
A month-by-month analysis of customs reports indicates that these codes stopped appearing in the “mirror” at the end of 2024. The Insider points to three key signs. First, the changes happened all at once. Second, companies — including highly specialized firms that previously imported a single type of product — remain active in the market. Third, transactions in these product categories are recorded as exactly zero in 2025. Taken together, that points to large-scale registry manipulation within customs.
Had the Russian importers simply relabeled their goods (with a customs officer’s approval or instruction), overall turnover would have stayed roughly unchanged, given that demand has not collapsed.
It appears that when customs documents are filled out for items under these codes, that information is not saved on customs’ central servers. Meanwhile, entries for other product categories continue to appear as usual.
This cover-up could make it impossible to credibly analyze and forecast real-economy activity. Indirectly, this “anti-sanctions” policy will hurt the Federal State Statistics Service Rosstat (which will face familiar accusations of falsification), academic institutes focused on the national economy, and government units responsible for planning and analytics.
