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MOSCOW, April 12 Last year Russia sharply increased purchases of strawberries from Azerbaijan, China and Kazakhstan, but imports from Turkey, the traditional largest supplier, fell to a minimum since 2020, calculated according to the UN platform Comtrade and national statistical services.
Russia last year increased its strawberry imports by 0.6% — to 50.5 thousand tons, while the top three suppliers remained unchanged last year — Turkey, Azerbaijan and Serbia. 
Turkish supplies decreased by 12% — to 22.7 thousand tons, which accounted for 45% of all Russian imports against 51% a year earlier. This was the minimum volume since 2020, when deliveries amounted to only 14.6 thousand tons. Imports from Serbia also decreased — by 37%, to 3.2 thousand tons (6.2%).
Azerbaijan, on the contrary, increased exports to Russia by 1.9 times — to 18.2 thousand tons, and its share increased to 36% from 19.5% a year earlier. China also significantly increased supplies — up to 1.8 thousand tons from 1.1 thousand a year earlier, as a result of which for the first time in many years it entered the top five largest suppliers of strawberries to Russia.
Armenia retains fifth place, although its exports decreased by 11% — to 1.7 thousand tons. The top ten also includes Egypt (1.6 thousand tons), Moldova (653 tons) and Kyrgyzstan (308 tons). Last year, Kazakhstan unexpectedly increased its exports to Russia by 88 times — to 277 tons, taking ninth place. Georgia closes the top ten with 22 tons. 
Strawberries were also supplied from Morocco, Uzbekistan, Lithuania, South Korea and Belgium — a total of 61 tons. But there were no imports from Poland, which in 2022 was the fourth largest supplier of this berry with an export volume of 2 thousand tons. At the same time, a Russian food embargo has been in force against Poland since 2015, and, according to its statistics, there were indeed no supplies in 2016-2019. However, from 2020 to 2022, deliveries resumed, probably they could go “under the flag” of another country.
According to estimates by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, strawberry production in Russia has been growing in recent years by about 20 thousand tons per year — in 2022 it reached 255 thousand tons.