German law enforcement officers have completed a four-year investigation and exposed a network of European components supplied to the Russian Federation to circumvent sanctions for military and nuclear developments.
Politico writes about this.
At the center of the case is the company Global Trade from the German city of Lübeck. Until 2022, it openly traded with Russia, but after the introduction of sanctions, it changed its export scheme to hide deliveries to Russian customers.
According to the investigation, another role in the scheme was played by the sanctioned Russian company “Kolovrat”, which operated under the name “Siderius”. It coordinated purchases for Russian industry, in particular the defense sector.
After the full-scale invasion began, the director of “Global Trade” was Mykyta S., whom investigators call the intermediary between the German company and Kolovrat. Employees of the Russian company gained access to “Global Trade” email and posed as German employees during negotiations with suppliers.
Microcontrollers, sensors, electronic components, and other equipment were supplied to Russia through this scheme. Some of the goods were transported through Turkey with the participation of another German company, ER “Industriebedarf GmbH”, which was run by a Russian Yevgeny R.
German intelligence gained access to internal documents of “Kolovrat”, including correspondence, invoices, and order data. After that, law enforcement officers conducted searches and detained the suspects in the case. They face up to ten years in prison.
- This is not the first time that Russians have been arrested or convicted in Germany for aiding Russia. In 2024, a Russian was detained in Germany for using his German company to purchase “marine goods” for Russia in violation of sanctions.
- In July of that year, a German court found a man with dual German-Russian citizenship guilty of selling electronics to Russian companies for military use. He was sentenced to 6 years and 9 months in prison.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.