July 9, 2026 - Senior Fellow for Eurasia and Director of Programs, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Laura Linderman was quoted in OC Media. [link]
Laura Linderman, Senior Fellow and Director of Programmes at the Central Asia–Caucasus Institute, however, emphasises that the issue goes beyond blaming a single culprit.
‘Weak customs capacity matters; that’s true across much of the post-Soviet space. Diaspora and business ties are [also] part of the picture, but I’d be careful not to overweigh them’, she says.
At the same time, however, she points to the local geography as the starting point for understanding sanctions evasion, noting that there is established trade infrastructure in every direction.
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Linderman, on the other hand, notes the importance of seeing the bigger picture rather than blaming individual actors, such as in the case of the earlier Starlink incident. She highlights that small traders, shell company registrants, and drivers moving goods across borders are at the bottom of the chain. The bottom layer only functions because it sits on top of something much more deliberate: professional enablers — lawyers, trust services, logistics firms, and bankers — who know exactly what they’re doing. There is also, of course, the political architecture that keeps the gaps open.
‘The US Department of the Treasury and the UK have [sanctioned] more than a hundred of these enablers over the past three years, and the EU is moving to criminalise sanctions evasion directly. So ‘opportunist’ describes the foot soldiers, but ‘network serving Russia’s war economy’ is closer to how the system actually runs’, she concludes.