The war in Ukraine has led to a number of sanctions by the European Union and others against Russia.

These sanctions include, for example, a ban on imports of steel, coal, oil and oil products from Russia.

The sanctions affect Russia, but also have economic consequences for the Netherlands. For instance, through increased disruptions in global trade and increased uncertainty about energy supply in north-western Europe.

In 2021, 71.5 million tonnes of the nearly 470 million tonnes of throughput in the port of Rotterdam was Russia-oriented (15%). By 2022, this has decreased to around 42.2 million tonnes (9%). Most of this is crude oil (23.9 million tonnes) and oil products (9.6 million tonnes). Many energy carriers are imported from Russia via the port of Rotterdam. Roughly speaking, in 2022: 23% of crude oil, 15% of LNG, 10% of coal and 16% of oil products came from Russia. Virtually no containers have been transferred since Russia invaded Ukraine. After the sanctions on coal entered into force in August, oil in December 2022 and oil products in February 2023, these products were no longer transported via Rotterdam.