At the beginning of 2022, it had a few other operations in Russia near St Petersburg, with all the factories employing about 800 people.

All that was before February 24, 2022, when Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine. Over 400 days have since passed, and the war rumbles on.

Given the weak reaction to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, some commentators have claimed that Putin believed western governments and companies, which continued to invest and do business in Russia, wouldn’t react strongly.

That was not the case – with an intense wave of sanctions introduced against Russia, as companies – including many Irish – opted to leave the market.

In a short media statement last month, Smurfit Kappa announced it had completed its exit from the Russian market.

The company had already announced its intention to exit Russia in April 2022 and entered an agreement to sell its Russian operations to local management.

Smurfit Kappa is not alone in the list of Irish companies and brands that exited the Russian market after Putin’s bloody invasion. Big players such as Kerry Group, CRH and Kingspan headed for the exit door.

A long list of new sanctions against Russia was introduced in the aftermath of the invasion.

A Department of Enterprise spokesman said the sanctions don't prohibit all trade, they targeted exports of goods that could contribute to Russia’s military and technological enhancement, or the development of its defence and security sector.

The sanctions also prohibit the import of goods from Russia to the EU that generate significant revenue for the Russian State, enabling its actions in Ukraine.

Despite those sanctions and several companies halting trade with Russia, Ireland still exported €549m worth of goods to Russia in 2022, importing €379m.

So, more than a year since the invasion, how have Irish companies coped with sanctions and lowering their trade with Russia?

Kenan Furlong, a partner in A&L Goodbody’s disputes and investigations group, has been helping businesses get their heads around the sanctions.

“I think it is fair to say everyone has been learning on the job, businesses and lawyers included,” he said. “The intensity and change of sanctions have been unprecedented.

“Businesses have been doing their best to adapt and respond accordingly, but it has been challenging.”

Furlong says that as the sanctions have sometimes been passed in a hurry, there can be some “interpretation issues” across sectors and some “grey areas”.

“I would say Irish businesses, in general, have taken a very responsible attitude toward it and have dealt with it pragmatically.

"There have been what you might call some teething problems that have arisen as part of that, but the response has evolved as the year has gone on, and the sophistication is significantly greater than it was a year ago.”

Most sanctions are related to what are known as “asset freeze sanctions”, which preclude companies from doing business with sanctioned entities or other firms that are controlled or owned by them.

While figuring out who is on the sanctions list is easy, as is who owns a company, the “big challenge” has been establishing who controls a firm.

“There have been a number of occasions where businesses have had difficulty ascertaining this ‘control’ question, and that then requires them to engage with the competent national authorities, be it the Central Bank or others,” Furlong said.

“Those aren’t easy issues for businesses or the authorities.

“There can be time pressure on them,” he added. “They might be looking to be paid a large amount of money, and they might say, ‘well, we don’t believe we are sanctioned, so we think you should pay us’, and the business is then dealing with the spectre that it is a criminal offence to breach sanctions. If you get it wrong, the consequences can be quite severe.”

According to Furlong, these issues had led to companies becoming “far more sophisticated” around risk management in relation to Russian sanctions.

While Furlong said almost all sectors had been affected, he believed the two most affected by sanctions had been financial services and aviation.

Ireland’s significant aviation leasing sector has been hit with many aircraft becoming stranded in Russia due to the sanctions and high-value court battles looming with insurers. On March 24 last year, AerCap submitted a claim to its insurers seeking an indemnity of nearly $3.5bn.

Financial services companies have been having issues establishing who controls entities and if they can release funds legally.

With the well-flagged financial services and aviation issues, many other sectors were also expected to be battered by the sanctions against Russia and Belarus and lower trade when the war started.

In the weeks and months after the war, headlines across Europe and Ireland warned of a potentially significant fertiliser shortage, imperilling food supply. Fertiliser from Russia had accounted for around 40pc of the Irish market.

Many sought clarity over whether fertiliser was included in the EU sanctions. Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue told the Farming Independent last October that EU sanctions do not apply to Russian fertiliser ahead of a shipment arriving in Ireland.

Managing director of Irish fertiliser distributor Grassland Agro, Liam Woulfe, said he had received a significant proportion of his products from Russia before the war, but opted to change his supply lines elsewhere.

He recognised some confusion over fertilisers and the status under sanctions, with some Russian companies potentially linked to sanctioned entities.

“It has been confusing, and that is a bad reflection on the authorities,” he said. “They washed their hands out of the proper information flow. We were expected to make up our own minds.”

Woulfe added: “Imposing sanctions was the guidance for the moral compass of Europe. We did that in full thrust and are still in the same position.”

On the outlook for fertiliser in Ireland, Woulfe believes there is enough capacity to produce what is needed but that the weather, rather than the war, could create issues.

The legal industry in Ireland also faced challenges, having provided services to Russian companies.

Paul Egan of Mason Hayes & Curran said his law firm decided in the immediate aftermath of the invasion that it would not represent or act for anyone aligned with the Russian government or those who were either directly or indirectly supporting the war in Ukraine.

“We dropped clients,” he said. “We are not alone in that – we were followed by all the large firms.”

In the early days of the invasion, Egan said MHC and other law firms in Ireland were approached by people asking them to help restructure and reorganise the ownership of companies that Russians owned.

“As soon as we did our due diligence, we had to say ‘thanks, but no thanks’.

“The message came back pretty quickly to those people. Some of the work that may have been offered might have been entirely respectful, but it was there pre-emptively of there being a ‘tightening of the noose’.”

One of the areas that had been profitable for some law firms was providing services to the large volume of Russian special purpose vehicles operating in Ireland, which are legal companies formed to meet short-term investment objectives.

The Central Bank froze billions of euro worth of assets linked to these entities, some of which had close ties to Russian state-backed companies.

While Egan said MHC had not been involved in this space, he was aware of some that were. But, generally, he said there had been a greater reluctance to work with any Russia-linked company due to the high volume of due diligence now required.

Another sector that flagged worries was the hardware and construction materials space.

In March 2022, following the illegal invasion of Ukraine, Enterprise Ireland surveyed client companies likely to be most exposed to the economic results of Russia’s actions.

The survey showed the most cited inputs where costs or availability were expected to be an issue after the invasion included construction-related raw materials, such as metals. Others were food, agricultural products, energy and chemicals.

According to Martin Markey, CEO of the industry lobby group Hardware Association Ireland, the worst fears did not transpire. Instead, he said that companies quickly switched suppliers to other markets.

“It was an issue over how to switch, but this is a very agile industry,” he said. “Since Covid, people are very agile in switching suppliers or countries. This is a global industry – if the Russians aren’t seen as the place to source something, they go elsewhere, and that is what they did.”

Looking across sectors, Enterprise Ireland said one of the most critical early interventions it made was concerning supply chains and identifying alternative suppliers for goods sourced from the region that sanctions had impacted. It also helped companies in nearby markets.

“Irish companies have retrenched from the Russian market since the invasion, and Enterprise Ireland is working with these companies to assist them enter new markets or expand in existing markets, using a range of existing advisory, market insight and financial supports.”

Looking to the 12 months ahead, A & L Goodbody’s Furlong believes the issues with trading with Russia are set to remain a significant business issue.

Furlong expects there to be a shift on the sanctions front. He flagged the potential for sanction breaches to become an EU-wide crime, the recent appointment of Irishman David O’Sullivan to an EU envoy role for the implementation of sanctions and initial talks of an EU-wide sanctions enforcement agency being formed.

“I think 2022 was the year of compliance, as it were, where everyone was getting to grips with the new laws and how they affect their business and scrambling to try and comply as responsibly as possible,” he said. “I think Irish business did react in a very responsible way by and large.

“However, I do think 2023 will be more about enforcement. You are not going to see another ten waves of sanctions.

"Gardaí have made it clear they are conducting investigations in relation to sanction breaches in Ireland.”

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