Russia's invasion in Ukraine has led to substantial restrictions on exports to Russia, which some East Asian economies have joined. We review the importance of East Asian economies as providers of technology imports for Russia and present a preliminary analysis on the development of Russian imports from East Asia after the invasion. We find that East Asian economies have been important suppliers of technology goods for Russia. After February 2022, exports of most East Asian countries to Russia have dropped substantially. Chinese exports to Russia have increased, especially in the category of vehicles.

In this note, we review recent data concerning Russia's economic integration with other countries. We first analyze the general picture of Russia's economic integration with the rest of the world and the importance of foreign economic relations for the country. We then turn to China, an increasingly significant economic partner for Russia. The European Union remains Russia's most important trading partner and is by far the most important source of foreign direct investment to Russia as well as source of other financing. China's importance to Russia has also increased, especially with respect to merchandise trade.

China has been a key participant in international fragmentation of production during the last decades. China has specialized mainly in labor-intensive manufacturing, but is striving to shift toward higher value-added production stages and production. At the same time, during recent decades, services have contributed increasing shares of valued-added to products produced through global production chains. For this reason we examine the evolving role of Chinese services in international production chains. Our results suggest that Chinese services account for an increasingly large share of production for the domestic market, and more recently have made increasing contributions to foreign production chains, which suggests that Chinese production is shifting to activities in production chains that are associated with higher value-added.