Pro-Kremlin Accounts Claim BMW Sold Thousands of Luxury SUVs in Russia Despite EU Sanctions
By Hope Talbot
What happened: Pro-Russian social media accounts are citing decade-old data to claim that German car manufacturer BMW sold thousands of luxury X7 SUVs to Russia in 2024, in violation of European Union sanctions forbidding luxury car sales to Russia after it invaded Ukraine.
Context: In 2022, the EU imposed extensive economic and other sanctions on Moscow, including a ban on the export of luxury, hybrid, and electric vehicles to Russia.
A closer look: In July 2025, pro-Russian social media users shared a graphic that claimed that BMW sold 3,504 X7 SUVs to Russia in 2024, more than it had sold in Germany. The graphic was purportedly based on sales figures by Autostat, a Russian analytical agency focused on the auto industry, and Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA), Germany’s automotive authority.
Pro-Russian X user @OlgaBazova posted the graphic on July 19 with a comment apparently aimed at belittling EU sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Take that, Putin,” the post stated, gaining 134,000 views and 4,200 likes in five days.
The claim was also shared by RT reporter Chay Bowes and by Tsargrad, a pro-Russian media outlet owned by Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev.
Actually: NewsGuard found no credible news reports indicating that BMW sold thousands of X7 SUVs in Russia in 2024.
Indeed, the data Autostat reported indicating that BMW sold 3,504 cars in Russia comes from 2014, not 2024.
Germany’s KBA reported that 3,256 X7 SUVs were sold in Germany in 2024. It provided no figures for sales in Russia.
In December 2024, Business Insider Deutschland reported that more than 100 luxury cars were smuggled into Russia from a BMW branch in Hanover, Germany, despite sanctions. These reports did not say whether any of the cars were X7s. BMW called these sales “irregularities” and told Business Insider that it fired the employees involved in the incident.
BMW did not respond to an email from NewsGuard inquiring about the matter.
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