Russia currently has no products to sell abroad. Russian foreign sales are presently limited to commodities, mostly oil and gas
The real story here is that Russia needs to buy artillery shells? It was axiomatic that Russian Generals first option is always guns parked wheel to wheel to batter the enemy senseless before a double envelopment.
The question rises, what happened to all the shells required? The answer seems to be that they did not actually exist.
The story is widely reported and not restricted to the New York Times.
You and I have no idea if it’s true or not, we’ve been fed so much propaganda that turned out to be false, to latch on any of it as the truth is dumb if you ask me.
When you say Russia has no products to sell abroad and then list two, it’s sort of counter intuitive, they absolutely sell products abroad, you listed two of them.
Russia is also one of the biggest exporters in the world of Wheat and fertilizer, two things that will really show up on the grocery store aisle over the next few months as this war in Ukraine drags on.