A new report by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy has found that a “surprisingly” high level of activity at Russia’s container ports indicates that Moscow is regaining its position in the global trade marketplace, despite a series of economic sanctions designed to prevent the purchases of its products by Western nations and cut it off from Western financial systems.

On Thursday, the German economic research institute released its trade data for August, showing that in the first instance since last year, the volume of goods moving through the three largest container ports in Russia is approaching the levels which it was at when the conflict in Ukraine initially began in February of 2022. The three largest ports examined were St Petersburg on the Baltic Sea, Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, and Vladivostok on the Pacific coast.

The latest Kiel Trade Indicator showed that at the St Petersburg port, the most important port in Russia for container traffic, arrivals have surged in recent weeks, following an earlier decline of 90%. At the same time, the institute noted that overall traffic at the nation’s ports was “surprisingly high.”

Vincent Stamer, head of the Kiel Trade Indicator said, “Where the goods are coming from is not clear from the container ship movements, but Russia seems to be rejoining the world trade. This occurs despite sanctions imposed by Western nations and the falling value of the ruble.”

The new data arrived on the heels of a new report from China which showed that its imports from Russia increased by the most ever in August, in dollar terms. According to figures from customs, last month, Beijing purchased $11.5 billion of goods from Russia.

Since last year, the two nations have seen their trade relations grow impressively. The Russian government expects that this year trade with China will rise to $200 billion, passing the previous record of $190 billion which had been reached in 2022.

The Kiel Trade Indicator offers estimates of trade flows, comprising both imports and exports, within 75 countries and regions worldwide, as well as global trade overall, by evaluating ship movement data in real time.