More widespread sanctions are driving a jump in “murky trade,”Bloombergreported. The number of sanctioned individuals and entities topped 60k in April, up 25.4% y-o-y, according to Refinitiv data cited by Bloomberg. More than one in four countries are subject to some form of United Nations or Western sanctions and 29% of global GDP output takes place in countries facing sanctions, according to Center for Economic and Policy Research data cited by Bloomberg. The rise of sanctions is leading to more sanctioned countries trading with each other, with more “one-off, ad-hoc arrangements” expected in the interim, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security said.

Russia is bankrolling Iranian infrastructure projects in a bid to secure alternative trade routes: Russia is funding Iran’s infrastructure for the North-South Corridor, a railway route connecting Russia to the Indian Ocean through Iran, as it looks to secure alternative trade routes after being cut off from its traditional Western ones due to sanctions, Nikita Smagin writes for Carnegie. Iran, which lacks the funds to finance the corridor, will need Russian funds in order to complete the project, though uncertain returns on investment, strained relations between Iran and Azerbaijan (which the corridor must pass through), and competition from other transport routes all pose risks to the project’s completion.

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