Galvanized steel rolls sit in a storage area following manufacture at the Novolipetsk Steel PJSC plant, operated by NLMK Group, in Lipetsk, Russia, on June 18, 2018. (Andrey Rudakov / Bloomberg via Getty Images)More than four years after the EU began sanctioning Russian steel, Belgium remains a loyal importer — thanks to a sanctions exemption that allows a Russia-based steel giant to continue supplying its Belgian factories with low-cost slabs.Despite sweeping EU sanctions against the Kremlin for its war in Ukraine, Belgium has opposed attempts to sanction the company, NLMK, and its Kremlin-connected billionaire owner, Vladimir Lisin. Belgian officials fear that taking action could hurt employment in an already economically deprived region. Critics say the arrangement is more money for one of Russia's richest oligarchs.NLMK in Russia is supplying its European mills with slabs, according to the European steel association Eurometal. An industry slide deck seen by the Kyiv Independent says those slabs are sold at "ultra low prices," giving EU-based re-rollers "an artificial cost advantage."While most forms of steel from Russia were sanctioned in the first weeks of the country's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there was one exception: semi-finished steel slabs.When steel is made, it can be cast into a basic "semi-finished" shape, which can then be "re-rolled" elsewhere into a final product, or finished steel. Slabs are one of these semi-finished shapes.