Alexander Shakutin, a businessman close to Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, keeps running a profitable business in Germany even though he manages it through a Lithuanian company subject to sanctions, according to the Belarusian Investigative Center (BIC) and Lithuania’s Siena investigative journalism centre.
Reportedly, three Lithuanian companies linked to Shakutin – Amkodor Baltic, EM Industry and EM System – were slapped with sanctions in Lithuania due to the Minsk regime’s 2020 crackdown on anti-government protestors.
The latter is linked to Shakutin’s German business which has not been affected by sanctions.
“Experts interviewed by BIC believe that SV Maschinen managed to circumvent EU sanctions legislation due to a confusing ownership structure,” according to BIC.
“It changed in September 2020, shortly before restrictions were imposed on Shakutin. Initially, he owned the company together with his long-time partners: Yaroslav Buyalskiy, Igor Subbotin, Vitali Vorotnitski and Valentin Yahorau.”
“The restructuring only left Yahorau among the owners with a share of 30 percent. The remaining 70 percent belongs to the Lithuanian company EM System.”
Data from the Lithuanian Centre of Registers show that EM System is equally owned by Subbotin and Shakutin, meaning that they control SV Maschinen, too.
According to BIC, SV Maschinen posted a net profit of around a million euros for the last financial year, while EM System ended the year 2021 with a loss of almost 103,000 euros. The Lithuanian company had 6.39 million euros in undistributed profits accumulated before the sanctions against Shakutin were announced.
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