Shipments of Russian plywood are climbing at U.S. ports — up 42 per cent year-on-year to 11,300 cubic metres in February — with exporters connected to Putin-aligned oligarchs among the biggest winners in Trump’s growing trade with Russia.
The sharp rebound, obtained by Lesprom using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, comes months after volumes sank more than 23 per cent late last year, making the turnaround the most pronounced single-month rebound in recent history. As it stands, the United States remains Russia’s third export market for plywood –behind only Thailand and China – with huge shipments of Russian birch ply also arriving in the United States via third-party ports in Vietnam and Indonesia, according to the US Hardwood Association.
Until Trump lifted sanctions on Russian oil, timber made up more than 50 per cent of all trade between the two countries, with the Decorative Hardwoods Association last year writing to the US Trade Representative warning that the $62 million in direct Russian plywood imports (in 2024) is dwarfed by the $360 million entering the U.S. via Vietnamese and Indonesian facilities, where manufacturers process Russian-origin birch before shipping into ports. At the time, the DHA warned that all Russian-origin plywood — whether imported directly or further processed through third-country ports — “helps support the Russian war effort,” with the full volume entering the country at low or zero tariff rates.
It comes as Trump has temporarily eased a raft of sanctions on Russian oil to stabilise global energy markets severely disrupted by war in Iran and the resulting closure of key shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz — a development the New Eurasian Strategies Centre said could position Russia as a potential mediator between Washington and Tehran. The White House confirmed the intervention aims to mitigate the surge in global oil prices, with the Peterson Institute for International Economics claiming that easing sanctions could deliver a major financial boost to Moscow’s war economy.
That financial boost flows directly to oligarchs like Alexei Mordashov — Russia’s richest man and the controlling force behind Sveza, the country’s largest plywood producer — who, as Wood Central revealed in its investigation into conflict timber flows, stood beside Putin on the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion and has since driven plywood shipments to US ports including Baltimore and Houston. Wood Central understands that Mordashov reduced his stake in Sveza to 49 per cent specifically to evade US sanctions, whilst continuing to draw personal revenue from the company’s North American operations.
- To learn more about the growing trade of Russian plywood entering the United States, click here for Wood Central’s special feature. And to learn more about the impact of European sanctions on Russia’s timber supply chain, click here.
