The most crucial outcome to date of Russia's import substitution campaign is that it has insulated Russia against the effects of any further sanctions. Except for a few sectors, like agriculture, food processing and the automotive industry, the volume growth brought by import substitution is still modest. More importantly, Russia has been able to cut its imports and launch a nascent and increasingly burgeoning domestic production of virtually everything that is produced in the world, quickly churning out technologies where it was most vulnerable, like arctic drilling technologies, engines for new ships for the navy, and medicine. Therefore, Russia has been surprisingly successful in cutting the dependency on Western imports and by extension its need to appease the West. Import substitution has thus been a major factor in strengthening Russia's national security and sovereignty.
The findings are laid out in a new study by the Moscow based Awara Accounting exploring the results of Russia's import substitution campaign.
