Estonia Seeing a Rise in Timber Imports Tied to Russia Sanctions Evasion
Estonia has recently seen an uptick in shipments of imported plywood that it suspects of violating EU sanctions against Russia, the country’s tax and customs agency said this month.
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The country said it has discovered multiple sanctions violations involving timber shipments during the first half of 2025, including shipments that start in Russia before being transshipped through countries such as Kazakhstan and China and trying to enter the EU through Estonia. Estonia said it has identified several factories in Kazakhstan that have falsified the origin of plywood destined for the EU border, adding that Georgia and Turkey are other “high-risk” transshipment countries.
In total, Estonia has inspected 618 timber shipments and found 23 violations this year, along with 79 shipments that “were immediately turned back at the border.” Other violations “were discovered in shipments that were initially allowed entry but later subjected to further origin verification during customs clearance.” In those cases, "the actual country of origin was found to be Russia, and 39 timber shipments were returned from within Estonia.”
Estonia specifically saw a “significant increase” in plywood imports from Kazakhstan and China last year and the beginning of this year, and it began strengthening customs checks for both imports and exports of plywood involving those two countries in February. It said those checks have reduced plywood imports from Kazakhstan by about 20% and from China by “more than tenfold.”
The customs agency has begun more than “100 proceedings for origin fraud related to customs declarations” involving timber imports from Kazakhstan, and in “many” of those cases, it found that “the level of processing carried out in Kazakhstan was insufficient to confer Kazakh origin.” Estonia said it plans to “continue post-clearance origin verifications for shipments from both China and Kazakhstan to detect new potential origin fraud schemes.”
Estonia doesn’t allow “intermediate storage, transshipment, or vehicle swapping in Russia” for imports of plywood and other wood products from third countries, “as this significantly increases the risk of origin fraud,” it added.
Ursula Riimaa, deputy director general for customs at the Estonian Tax and Customs Board, said Russia-related sanctions evasion is growing more sophisticated.
“While previously these attempts relied on relatively simple schemes, today’s supply chains are far more complex -- production is moved to third countries, and raw materials are mixed to conceal their Russian origin,” Riimaa said. “Our goal is to identify these new evasion schemes and ensure that prohibited Russian goods do not reach Estonia or the EU market.”