Don't forget that a lot of the Russian colaboration was an anti-West sentiment.
With Trump being able to smell what Putin had for breakfast, but also ramping up the Chinese trade war, those positions are no longer as aligned.
And with recent economical aversion of chinese influence growing in Europe, they could use a backup plan to maintain access to the European market
Yeah, you need a VAT number.
It used to be like that in Makro as well, but people basically would use the data of some self-employed uncle to get cards for the entire family, so they dropped the VAT-restriction (but card was still mandatory)