.RUSSIA'S gemstone industry is under the gun. On January 1st the G7, a group of rich nations, and the European Association disallowed imports of rough diamonds extracted in Russia-- a third of the total removed worldwide in 2022. On January 3rd the EU incorporated Russia's condition exploration company, and also its ceo, to its decrees list. This is actually the first phase of a comprehensive sanctions system: in March the G7 and also EU are going to ban Russian jewels that have actually been cut as well as fine-tuned abroad. In September they are going to introduce a license program to verify where rubies were actually unearthed. These steps add up to the most significant modification to the business in decades. Why possesses it taken so long to establish decrees on Russia's diamond field-- and also what impact will they have?