Russia’s vodka and liquor exports slumped last year largely due to political tensions with the west and Ukraine.

According to the Centre for the Study of Federal and Regional Alcohol Markets, Russian exports of the products fell by 42% to 43.5m litres in 2015, the lowest since 2005. The total value of vodka and liquor exports dropped 40.2% to $111.9m (£77.4m), the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported.

The amount of Russian alcohol exported to Britain also shrank 59% to 9.9m litres in 2015, the centre’s director, Vadim Droby, said.

Droby added that following the fall in oil prices and Russia’s ensuing economic crisis, many vodka producers no longer had the money to distribute and promote their alcohol in export markets. He also blamed western sanctions against Russia for ruining companies’ taste for export.

“The sanctions don’t ban vodka, but every entrepreneur’s task is to make money, and he won’t risk his money so your English consumer will have Russian vodka,” he said. “Maybe they’ll ban Russian vodka tomorrow, who knows?”

Negative media coverage of Russia’s involvement in conflicts in Ukraine and Syria has turned foreign consumers off, he argued.

Tense relations with Ukraine accounted for a large part of the slump, following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and backing of a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. Russian vodka exports in Ukraine shrank from $38.6m in 2013 to $3.87m in 2015.

Roust, which owns the popular Russian Standard brand and controls about 60% of Russia’s export market, blamed slower sales in Ukraine and Kazakhstan for its 29% decline in export volumes during 2015.

Despite the drop in volumes, the UK remains the largest importer of Russian vodka, with $22.53m worth of liquor deliveredin 2015, followed by Germany, Latvia and the US. Now that small vodka makers have been forced out of the export market, some large firms have been able to profit: Roust’s brands now account for a record 15% of the vodka market in the UK, Kommersant said.