agriculture Article Agricultural and Foodstuff Trade between EU28 and Russia: (Non)Uniformity of the Russian Import Ban Impact Distribution Mikhail Krivko 1, * and Luboš Smutka 2   Citation: Krivko, M.; Smutka, L. Agricultural and Foodstuff Trade between EU28 and Russia: (Non)Uniformity of the Russian Import Ban Impact Distribution. Agriculture 2021, 11, 1259. https:// doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11121259 Academic Editor: David Oscar Yawson Received: 18 November 2021 Accepted: 8 December 2021 Published: 12 December 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Department of Economics, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 21 Prague, Czech Republic 2 Department of Trade and Finance, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 21 Prague, Czech Republic; smutka@pef.czu.cz * Correspondence: krivko@pef.czu.cz Abstract: The distribution of the impact of the Russian import ban on the EU28 countries is not uniform. The market shares and clustering of the EU28 countries changed before and after the introduction of the ban. Although the Russian import ban was introduced as a countermeasure to Western sectoral and individual sanctions, the ban’s impact on EU28 economies is not parallel, and the impact is not evenly distributed among EU members. Cluster analysis shows that two groups of countries can be distinguished, with Group 2 having the most severe impact from the ban (on average, a decrease of 48% in the trade balance with Russia). Our results show that Germany, the Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy and Poland are the countries which have experienced the largest Russian import ban impact and bear up to 63% of total EU28 losses due to the ban. Some of the countries (Austria, Hungary, Czechia) did not stop expanding trade after the import ban, and they could be the ones to see the first benefits once the ban is lifted. Keywords: European Union; Russia; import ban; agricultural trade 1. Introduction Trade in agricultural commodities in Eurasia during the past decade has seen a remarkable event: in August 2014, Russia introduced a ban on imports of specific agri-food products from one of its most important trade partners, the European Union. As several years have passed since the inception of the import ban, it is now possible to assess the impact of the ban on the trade and economic performance of impacted countries. The Russian import ban was introduced as a countermeasure to sectoral and individual restrictive measures imposed by the European Union, the United States and several other countries following the events at the East of Ukraine in 2014. The EU and the USA have imposed several packages of economic sanctions against Russia, including a ban on the transfer of specific technologies (including deep-water drilling), a ban on long- term financing for selected state-owned Russian banks and companies, the blocking of assets, and a ban on doing business with specified Russian companies. In response, Russia imposed a ban on the import of a specified list of foodstuff products for an initial period of one year. The ban has been extended every year since its inception. The scope of the ban included milk and dairy products, pork, poultry, beef, fish and crustaceans, vegetables, and fruits. Both episodes of economic sanctions can be classified as targeted sanctions [1,2]. While the introduction of a foodstuff import ban as a reaction to individual and sectoral sanctions might be seen as an inadequate response, it is important to look at the context of the events of 2014 and the position of both sides. Western sanctions against Russia have been partially targeted at entities involved in the Ukrainian events of 2014, and have partially had a broader character, such as a ban on the long-term financing of Agriculture 2021, 11, 1259. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11121259 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/agriculture