The associates of the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov are exporting to Russia modern metallurgical equipment and scrap metal from the Mariupol Metallurgical Plant (MMP) named after Ilyich.
This is reported by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) with reference to current and former managers of the metallurgical plant and Russian corporate documents.
The newspaper writes that the exported scrap metal is supplied to Russian automakers under sanctions, and Kadyrovʼs associates transport industrial gases for the Russian space program. Earlier, the mayor of Mariupol Vadym Boychenko said in an interview that Ilyichʼs products are processed for the production of trucks and cars in Russia or the construction industry of the Russian Federation.
In March, the Russian occupation authorities in Mariupol announced that over the previous six months, 130 000 tons of iron by-products, worth approximately 16 million, had been taken out of the plant. potentially valued at $16 million dollars.
The company "Metinvest", which controlled the plant before the full-scale invasion, said that the occupiers also dismantled and sent to the Russian Federation a production line worth $220 million.
According to the customs database 52wmb, in September 2022, a Moscow trader bought a steel cargo worth $380 000. Other Russian companies took the containers and coal left at the plant. And in January 2023, it was exported to Uzbekistan at a cost of $50 000.
A local resident, with whom the journalists of The Wall Street Journal spoke, says that trucks with scrap metal often leave the plant.
The Wall Street Journal writes that they saw in the received photos that the entrance to the Ilyich plant was decorated with Kadyrovʼs portrait and the logo of his Chechen militia.
Who manages the Mariupol Metallurgical Plant named after Ilyich now
The newspaper writes that the plant is controlled by Ruslan Geremeev, who is a relative of Kadyrovʼs associate Senator Suleiman Geremeev .
It is also about the fact that shortly after the Russians occupied Mariupol, in August 2022, two men, one of whom was Valid Vahytovych Korchagin, founded the company "MMK named after Ilyich". Korchagin is allegedly the son of Suleiman Geremeev.
Korchaginʼs equal partner in the new company was Russian businessman Yuriy Murai, who is connected to the military. He also transported goods for the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation to the occupied Crimea, writes WSJ.
Last year, another associate of Kadyrov — Alash Dadashov — became a co-owner of the Ilyich metallurgical plant. Dadashov and the former head of “Azovstal” sell industrial gas from Mariupol, in particular, to the Russian space agency “Roscosmos” through the Technical Materials LLC company.
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