Vladimir Zuhovitskiy’s Zov-LenEvromebel makes flat-pack kitchen furniture in a modern factory just 19km from the Polish border, but it sends almost all of its exports east to Russia and not west to the European Union.

“We are producing mainly for Russia,” says Mr Zuhovitskiy, who started his current holding of 18 companies with just three people during the economic reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.