OREANDA-NEWS. Despite US sanctions against Russian small arms, ammunition shipments from Russia to America have broken records. US partners of Russian manufacturers took advantage of a sanctions loophole by extending imports.

In 2021, shipments of Russian ammunition and its component parts to the United States in monetary terms set a record in Russia's recent history - since the early 1990s. This is evidenced by foreign trade data from the US Census Bureau.

In the first ten months of this year, US companies imported $157.9 million worth of Russian ammunition for firearms. The previous record was set in 2016 ($148 million for the entire year) and was broken by shipments in October 2021 for $15.4 million. For comparison, for the entire year of 2020 Russian ammunition imports to the US were about $120 million.

In physical terms, Russian ammunition imports to the United States for January-October 2021 exceeded 7,700 tonnes, compared to 5,200 tonnes for the full year last year, according to the UN Comtrade database. In 2016, imports of cartridges and ammunition parts by weight amounted to about 6,000 tonnes.

The Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation would not comment on the increase in ammunition shipments to the US, as "we are talking about cartridges for civilian weapons". The Ministry of Industry and Trade said that the growth in supplies to the US was due to a significant increase in demand for ammunition in that country in the last two or three years. Compared to 2018, shipments of Russian civilian small arms cartridges to the US have almost tripled, the ministry said.