EU sanctions envoy David O'Sullivan arrived in Bishkek on February 26 to warn Kyrgyzstan’s government that its heavy “re-export” flows to Russia of dual-use European goods must be stopped.

In a wry comment on how he is not exactly Mr Popular in the Kyrgyz capital, O’Sullivan, reported Euractiv, remarked: “I think [my Kyrgyz counterparts] welcome my visits about as much as a visit to the dentist.”

“The fact that I’m here is not necessarily a good thing for Kyrgyzstan,” he said, drawing particular attention to surging re-exports from the small Central Asian country to Russia of radio equipment and machine tools suitable for defence production that are purchased in EU member states.

Reuters quoted O’Sullivan as telling a press conference: "We have reason to believe that the trade flows indicate that these [dual-use] goods are being imported into Kyrgyzstan with the sole purpose of being re-exported to Russia in breach of our sanctions."

"What is disturbing for us is the fact that there has been a significant and very noticeable percentage, a big increase in the percentages of your [Kyrgyzstan’s] imports and re-export of these products compared to the pre-war period," he added.

Since Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, an ally of Moscow that includes a Russian military base and lavishly welcomed Vladimir Putin for a state visit last November, has become one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Growth has averaged around 9% a year. Analysts say they are convinced much of this economic expansion stems from the country of 7.4mn becoming a reliable conduit for flows of goods to sanctioned Russia.

Several Kyrgyz banks – including alleged sanctions evader Keremet Bank, which the British National Crime Agency (NCA) late last year claimed was helping Russian state-owned and defence sector-oriented bank Promsvyazbank (PSB) make payments for "Russia's military-industrial base" –and cryptocurrency firms have already been sanctioned by Western powers for assisting the Kremlin in evading sanctions.

The EU is now considering hitting Kyrgyzstan with more measures, including a first use of its anti-circumvention tool, which has been designed to place targeted trade restrictions on third countries seen as sanctions evaders working in Russia’s war machine interests.

Kyrgyzstan has objected to sanctions already placed on its companies as "one-sided" and "interference in the country's internal affairs", with ministers claiming any sanctions evasion is committed in the shadows by private sector operators with no state blessing. It has offered to help the EU curtail their activities.

O'Sullivan was further quoted by Reuters as saying that the EU respects Kyrgyzstan's need for a close economic relationship with Russia, where hundreds of thousands of its citizens travel for work.

"We are not asking Kyrgyzstan not to have trading relations with Russia," he said. "We only ask that that trading relationship does not involve the deliberate circumvention of our sanctions by the transmission through Kyrgyzstan of sanctioned EU goods to Russia."