MOSCOW, March 7 NATO countries supplied Russia with wine worth $873 million last year — this is three percent of the total wine exports of these countries, follows from calculations based on open data.
Thus, out of 31 NATO countries, in 2023, 19 states exported wine to Russia. The total volumes of these deliveries amounted to almost $873 million. That's three percent of the nineteen countries' total wine exports, which totaled $27 billion last year.
Among NATO members, the leaders in wine supplies to Russia were expectedly Latvia, Lithuania and Italy, they accounted for 87 percent of all NATO wine arriving in the Russian Federation. Latvians exported nearly $373 million worth of wine to the Russians, Lithuanians — $212 million, and Italians — $172 million.
Next in terms of supplies of grape drink are Poland — 42.2 million dollars, Spain — 28.3 million, Germany — 20.3 million and Portugal — 12.7 million. The top ten is completed by France, which exported $7.4 million worth of wine to the Russian Federation, as well as Estonia — 1.7 million and Bulgaria — 1.6 million.
Among the rest of the alliance countries from which Moscow purchased wine last year were Turkey ($718 thousand), Czech Republic ($571 thousand), Greece ($530 thousand), Finland ($419 thousand), Hungary ($409 thousand), North Macedonia ($218 thousand). thousand), as well as Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands with supply volumes of up to 200 thousand dollars.
Earlier this week, executive secretary of the Association of Winegrowers and Winemakers of Russia, Alexey Plotnikov, said that the association had asked the authorities to set import duties on wine from NATO countries at 200 percent and cancel the preferential regime for import duties on wines from Georgia. In addition, from September 1, 2024, cafes and restaurants are proposed to be required to have at least 50 percent of Russian wine items in their wine list, and alcohol retailers to have at least 20 percent of Russian wine in their assortment, with a subsequent increase in its share to 50 percent.
At the end of July last year, the press service of the Ministry of Economic Development reported that the Russian government had increased import duties on wines from unfriendly countries until the end of 2023 — from 12.5 percent to 20, but not less than 1.5 dollars per liter. The measure came into effect on August 1. Later it was extended for the entire year 2024.