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New Zealand's 33rd sanctions round under the Russia Sanctions Act 2022 designated 65 "shadow fleet" tanker vessels involved in transporting Russian-origin crude oil, together with seven entities and two individuals based in Russia, Belarus, North Korea and Iran that refine or transport Russian oil or facilitate oil-related payments. Designated parties are subject to asset freezes and prohibitions on the supply of services (including port access, insurance, chartering and cargo handling) by New Zealand persons. The measure targets the revenue chain funding Russia's war in Ukraine rather than imposing a new tariff or trade-flow control.

New Zealand's 32nd sanctions round under the Russia Sanctions Act 2022 (Russia Sanctions Amendment Regulations (No 4) 2025, SL 2025/195) lowered the price cap on Russian-origin crude oil (HS 2709) from US$60/bbl to US$47.60/bbl, a roughly 21% cut, aligning New Zealand with the EU, UK and Canada's most recent price-cap reductions. The same instrument designated 19 individuals and entities plus 19 vessels, including Russia's GRU cyber unit 29155 (implicated in malware attacks on Ukrainian government networks), actors involved in chemical-weapons use and disinformation, additional "shadow fleet" tankers, alternative payment providers, and third-country facilitators based in North Korea and Iran supporting Russia's war effort.

New Zealand's Russia Sanctions Amendment Regulations (No 3) 2025, made under the Russia Sanctions Act 2022, came into force on 19 June 2025 designating seven entities and ten individuals -- including North Korean, Iranian and Belarusian actors supporting Russia's war effort and Russian actors involved in drone and weaponry production. The same instrument created a new "restricted ship" category under Regulation 8 and sanctioned 27 vessels in Russia's shadow fleet under it, and expanded the Regulation 12 legal-services exception. Designated parties are subject to asset freezes and prohibitions on New Zealand persons supplying services to them.

President Lukashenko signed Decree No. 278 on 10 July 2024, extending the prohibitive import customs duty regime established under Decree No. 16 (12 January 2024) through 30 June 2025, preventing its lapse at year-end 2024. The decree also expands the commodity list subject to elevated import duty rates. The measure explicitly frames the duties as retaliatory, targeting goods originating from states designated as "unfriendly" to Belarus — principally EU member states, the US, UK, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and other sanctioning jurisdictions. Co-ordinated with Russia's EAEU parallel-import framework (Resolution No. 506), the regime affects the cost arithmetic for sanctioned-goods routing through EAEU customs-union channels and signals continued institutionalisation of Belarus's counter-sanctions architecture.

On 24 February 2022 (25 February NZ time) the New Zealand Government announced its first measures after Russia's invasion of Ukraine: targeted travel bans on Russian Government officials and individuals associated with the invasion, a prohibition on exporting goods to Russian military and security forces, and suspension of bilateral foreign-ministry consultations. The export prohibition is end-user based; the announcement does not itemise products or give a trade value. GTA tags cereals, vegetables and fruit-and-nuts sectors for this intervention; the primary release reviewed does not mention them.