Western companies are frequently violating sanctions. How are these companies helping Russia to circumvent them?
Analysts have found evidence of Russian companies circumventing sanctions and buying ammunition production equipment from the EU.
Our analytical group has revealed a very important story. A somewhat sensational and quite cynical one.
I will give just a small part below. We have passed more information, evidence and legal background to the journalists of "Ukrainska Pravda".
We also invite all Ukrainian and Western media to conduct an in-depth investigation.
The other day (on 2 April), Anonymous hackers hacked the Russian company LLC "Lipetsk Mechanical Plant" and published 27 GB of mail data from its employees. Our analysts have looked over part of this correspondence.
As you might recall, after the annexation of Crimea and the seizure of Donetsk and Luhansk, sanctions were imposed on a number of Russian companies, primarily in the military sector. These sanctions prohibited all trade with the Russian companies.
JSC "Kalashnikov Concern" (hereinafter – "Kalashnikov") was one of the companies sanctioned.
"Lipetsk Mechanical Plant" (hereinafter referred to as "Lipetsk") was not included in the list of sanctions. On paper at least, this plant belongs to a private individual named Timur Gareev.
However, the correspondence clearly shows the "Lipetsk plant" making purchases on behalf of "Kalashnikov."
One example. Most recently, on 29 November, 2021, a procurement adviser to the General Director of "Kalashnikov" sent a letter to the commercial director of "Lipetsk" with instructions to send requests for purchasing a line they needed for their ammunition production.
"Lipetsk" sent inquiries to five companies, and correspondence started with two of these: the Italian "Invernizzi Presse" and the Belgian "New Lachaussee".
At one point, "Kalashnikov" began to push companies to respond faster. In the end, the Italians terminated the correspondence (but politely recommended another Italian company).
As a result of "Lipetsk’s" assistance, "Kalashnikov" received a confidential commercial offer signed by the Belgian director.
In general, the correspondence even looked comical - "Lipetsk" is used simply as an operating shell company between "Kalashnikov" and its suppliers."Won’t you get confused?", "Lipetsk"’s commercial director once even joked in a letter to "Kalashnikov."
Here I have given only the tip of the iceberg. We have real evidence (more substantial than this correspondence) that the Russian military did not just make inquiries, but actually bought products from Western companies.
They did this often through official distributors, using the simplest schemes.
Two main conclusions:
- A number of Western companies are frequently violating sanctions. I am convinced that they are deliberately ignoring these basic two-way schemes using shell companies. We have noticed such behaviour on many occasions and in many countries.
- Sanctions on specific companies do not work. All Russian companies obey a single centre and work as a group to circumvent sanctions.
If the West is sincere in its desire to help Ukraine, it needs to impose a total embargo on trade with any Russian company, as well as to establish real measures to monitor such schemes, including with the help of companies in other countries.
This is just a small part of what we have found. As I wrote above, we have passed a lot of information to journalists.
We are ready to pass on a lot of materials and direct evidence to foreign media - not just correspondence. We invite all Western media to write to us at a specially created email address: sanctions.dont.work@gmail.com
I appeal to Western countries to stop cheating and immediately impose a total embargo on all Russian business in all directions.
I believe that we will definitely achieve this.
Published with permission of the author.
Dmytro Dubilet, Monobank co-founder – WEDNESDAY
