Europe banned the export of luxury cars to Russia two years ago, but did not impose the same sanctions on Belarus. Since then, Belarus has become an obvious car transit corridor to Russia, with car exports to Belarus via Latvia increasing 50 times over. It would take astonishing naiveté to believe the vast majority of these high-spec vehicles are not being immediately driven onward to Russia for delivery. 

Latvia’s customs service would like the sanctions imposed against Moscow to be duplicated against Minsk, but for now the EU does not plan to take any action. The result is a glaring illustration of the ease of…