The second half of 2025 was supposed to be the moment the European Union shut the door on Russia's mineral fertiliser industry. With enormous tariffs, Brussels effectively closed the European market. On paper the effect looked perfect: deliveries fell from around 1.5 million tonnes to a modest 68,700.

The effect on the Russian treasury did not happen.

Instead of falling, the total revenue of the world's largest fertiliser exporter rose from 15.4 billion dollars to 18 billion. The calculations come from Polish analysts, and the frustration accompanying them describes the situation best - the country that most loudly demanded pressure on Moscow is now watching that pressure come back as a boomerang.

When you lose one market, find new ones

Having lost its European buyers, the Kremlin immediately redirected the trade flows. India, Brazil, Serbia and the United States became key importers of Russian mineral fertiliser. The statistics from the first four months of this year are clear enough: American purchases jumped from 529 million to 820 million dollars, and Washington spent 1.3 billion dollars on them last year too. Exports to Brazil rose to 171 million dollars.

So while Europe was imposing tariffs, Europe's loudest ally was buying more and more. That is not a contradiction requiring lengthy explanation - it is the difference between what a state says and what a state pays for.

This region is not a bystander

Deliveries to Serbia more than tripled, reaching almost 60 million dollars. When the European market closes, the goods do not disappear - they find a nearer door, and the Balkans are always a nearer door.

Fertiliser is not an ordinary commodity. It is an input for an entire country's agriculture. Every country deciding where to source it is also deciding how exposed it will be when that source one day becomes a political problem. Is anybody in this region doing that arithmetic now, or will we wait for others to do it for us again?

A sanction that punishes from the wrong side

The logic of sanctions rests on the assumption that the buyer is irreplaceable. When that buyer is replaced within a few months, the sanction remains only as a cost to whoever imposed it. The European Union, as the Polish analysts drily note, „effectively” cut itself out of the chain, while the rest of the world carried on buying.

The question is not whether Brussels had the right to impose the tariffs. The question is whether anybody calculated in advance what would happen the next day - and what a measure is worth when it hits the one imposing it harder than the one it is aimed at.