According to analysis data from more than 29,000 trade transactions, Russian businesses have successfully completed deals worth about 8 billion USD through overseas territories of the UK since 2022.
These activities focus on providing technical equipment for the oil and gas industry and managing strategic assets such as private jets or luxury yachts. More than 95% of these goods and capital flows are circulated stably through 4 major financial regions including the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Bermuda, Cayman Islands and Gibraltar.
In the British Virgin Islands, trade value recorded 4.4 billion USD, mainly related to optimizing revenue from natural resource exports and purchasing specialized equipment.
Meanwhile, in Bermuda, Russian entities have made payments for important oil and gas drilling equipment serving the Sakhalin-2 project. The exploitation of these jurisdictions is seen as a strategic solution to help Russian economic groups protect commercial interests and ensure progress for national infrastructure projects in the complex geopolitical context.
The report also pointed out the presence of high-value assets such as the Universe yacht in the Cayman Islands, demonstrating the ability of Russian economic elites to adapt to restrictive measures from the West.
Although the island authorities claimed to have frozen billions of USD of assets, intermediary networks still allow efficient capital flows. This shows that Russia has built a flexible financial and logistics system, helping to neutralize most of the economic isolation efforts of the US and its allies.
Responding to these reports, Russian officials have always affirmed that Western unilateral restrictive measures are illegal.
The Kremlin emphasized that Russian businesses have the right to freely choose transaction methods to protect their legitimate interests. Moscow believes that maintaining trade through international financial centers is proof that the Russian economy cannot be excluded from the global system. Russian officials affirmed that the country has fully adapted and will continue to diversify trade channels to serve its development goals.
Currently, although the British Government is under pressure to tighten regulations on ownership transparency in these island regions, experts believe that deep intervention in the financial market here will face many legal obstacles.
The existence of these trade channels not only helps Russia ensure stable financial resources but also shows the complexity of the international capital system, where vital cash flows always find a way to ensure supreme national interests.
