Water purification technologies made in Lithuania’s Kaunas continued to be exported to Russia even after its invasion of Ukraine. Companies in Estonia, Slovakia, Turkey, and China were used to ship the goods, worth nearly 62 million euros, and the customer for the equipment was a Russian company working with the sanctioned oil producer Gazprom Neft.
Detained cargo
In late autumn 2023, Lithuanian customs detained a shipment of water filtration systems that was supposed to go to China, sources confirmed to LRT. The cargo was stopped amid suspicions that the equipment might end up in Russia. The owner of the cargo is Kaunas-registered Jurby Water Tech.
According to sources, the cargo is currently being assessed by the Strategic Goods Control Commission, which includes the Economy and Innovation Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, the State Security Department, the Lithuania Police, Customs, Armed Forces, and the State Nuclear Power Safety Inspectorate. The commission is tasked with deciding whether to grant Jurby Water Tech an export licence.
The Economy and Innovation Ministry told LRT that the commission has not yet issued the export license to the Kaunas-registered company.
Data collected by the LRT Investigation Team show that at least 60 Jurby Water Tech shipments, worth 61.5 million euros, ended up in Russia, although the documents listed different destinations.
The equipment was shipped via intermediate buyers in Estonia, Slovakia, Turkey, and China. Available export data show that the technology was shipped from Kaunas, where the Jurby Water Tech plant is located, and in some cases, the goods reached Russia via Poland.
With some exceptions, the EU regulation classifies filtration equipment as dual-use goods that can be used for both civil and military purposes. The export of such equipment to Russia is prohibited.
“Water filters can be considered dual-use goods because some components can be used in the military industry,” Irmina Frolova-Milašienė, a spokesperson for the Customs Department, told LRT.
Promised to leave Russia
Jurby Water Tech is registered in Kaunas and has been operating there since Lithuania’s independence. The company has a factory with around 50 employees next to the former military airfield in Kaunas. The business is managed by Jurby Watertech International, a company registered in the Netherlands, which also owns Jurby Watertech and Jurby Management Rus in Russia.
The LRT Investigation Team has already reported that Jurby Water Tech companies operating in Russia won state contracts to work with Kremlin-controlled companies, such as Gazprom Neft, Rosneft, Lukoil, Inter RAO, and Enel Russia.
Further reading
Following the LRT investigation in March 2022, Jurby Water Tech removed information about its projects in Russia from its website.
In the summer of 2022, in response to questions sent by LRT, Jurby Water Tech said it was selling its business in Russia. “The legal formalisation of the sale transaction with the new owners of the companies is currently underway,” the response read, adding that the procedures were expected to be completed by the end of July 2022.
But the company has not yet withdrawn from Russia. Moreover, its profits in Russia increased almost 34-fold – from 22,000 euros in 2021 to 735,000 euros in 2022.
“A Russian company’s profits are directly linked to the volume of projects it undertakes. Profits have nothing to do with the war in Ukraine,” Jurby Watertech representatives said in a written reply.
The Kaunas company say this is due to the protracted process: “Negotiations with potential buyers for Jurby Watertech and Jurby Management Rus are ongoing. The Russian regime controls and restricts the process of foreign shareholders’ exit from Russian companies, so the sale process in Russia is more complicated and longer than we would like.”
Bypasses to Russia
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Jurby Water Tech exports from Kaunas to a related company in Moscow did not stop. According to trade data from the ImportGenius system, the Kaunas company continued to export technology to Moscow until the end of June 2022, or for four months after the start of the war.
Later, the Kaunas plant started shipping its equipment to Russia through two intermediate companies – Estonia-registered Lynx Nebula and Baliona Trading registered in Slovakia. The Kaunas company said in its written response that it had carried out projects with both companies that had now ended. The registry data show that both the Estonian and Slovak companies have no formal employees and operate without real premises, ie they have only a correspondence address in the so-called business incubator.
“Jurby Water Tech had signed two contracts with Lynx Nebula – in April 2022 and December 2022. The contracts have now expired, and the projects have been completed,” the Kaunas company said, without specifying what projects it had carried out with the logistics intermediary in Estonia.
The contract with Slovakia-registered Baliona Trading, which has also expired, was reportedly signed in November 2022.
However, the collected data shows that equipment from Kaunas to Russia travelled through intermediaries even after the expiry of the contracts, until February 2023.
Since the beginning of the war, 60 documented shipments of equipment produced at the Jurby Water Tech plant in Kaunas have reached Russia. The shipments, weighing 6–7 tonnes each, travelled from Kaunas or from the Polish village of Koroszczyn on the Russian border.
According to Delfi Estonia, Lynx Nebula is owned by Oleg Smoli, a former banker who was convicted 11 years ago in a bribery case related to a Moscow bank. He owns six Estonian companies, including Lynx Nebula. According to its website, the latter is involved in investment brokerage, logistics, and consultancy.
Meanwhile, Baliona Trading is registered in Bratislava, Slovakia. The commercial registers list the partners of this company as Evgenia Savina, a Russian national, and Erfaliso Trading Ltd, registered in the British Virgin Islands.
The latest available export data is April 18, 2023. It shows that three more shipments of filtration equipment manufactured in Kaunas reached Russia on that day. These shipments were delivered to Russia by the Hong Kong company Unione Trading And Spedition. According to the available documents, the goods travelled to Russia via Poland.
In March and April last year, several companies operating in Turkey – Iris Uluslararasi Ticaret Limited Şirketi, established in September 2022, Iris Uluslararasi Ticaret Limited, and Fiador Group Danismalnik Ic Ve Dis Ticaret Limited, established in June 2021 – assisted in the transport of the equipment from Kaunas to Russia.
Russian clients
The buyers of the Kaunas-registered company’s equipment in Russia are three interrelated companies – ASP-Aqua, Novada, and ASP-Avtomatika. ASP-Aqua is also a shareholder in the other two companies and is owned by four little-known Russian nationals.
However, ASP-Aqua is far from being a small company. Its imports in 2022 have increased almost a hundredfold compared to the pre-war period.
Jurby Water Tech told the LRT Investigation Team that it did not have any contracts with ASP-Aqua between 2022 and 2023.
One of ASP-Aqua’s main business partners is FEO (Federal Ecological Operator), a subsidiary of Rosatom, the state-owned company that manages Russia’s nuclear industry and reprocesses nuclear waste.
ASP-Aqua is also involved in the modernisation of Gazprom Neft’s refinery in Moscow. Jurby Watertech International has been carrying out various works at this plant for more than a decade.
In 2010, the Moscow plant began construction of a light petrol isomerisation unit, which has enabled it to produce high-quality petrol. According to reports at the time, the purification equipment for the unit was manufactured at the Jurby Water Tech plant in Lithuania.
But this was not the only cooperation project between Jurby Water Tech and Gazprom Neft. The Kaunas company does not deny that its related company has unfinished projects in Russia.
“Today, everything is being done to exit the Russian market as soon as possible, processes are underway, projects are gradually coming to an end. The Russian company Jurby Watertech, lawyers, and all other stakeholders involved in the exit are working on it. It should be stressed that Jurby Water Tech is a separate company operating in Lithuania and is not responsible for Jurby Watertech’s activities in Russia,” it said in a written reply.
Searches in Kaunas
On Tuesday, officers of Lithuania’s Customs Criminal Service (MKT), assisted by officers of the Financial Crimes Investigation Service, searched the administrative and production premises of Jurby Water Tech in Kaunas. Documents and gadgets were seized during the searches.
The MKT suspects that Jurby Water Tech, which has been operating in Lithuania since 1996 and is owned by Viktor Redko, violated the EU sanctions on Russia.
Oleg Smoli, a shareholder of the Estonian company Lynx Nebula, has not replied to LRT’s questions. LRT was not able to contact representatives of the Slovak company Baliona Trading.
Mikhail Maglov of Scanner Project, Tomas Madlenak of Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak, Martin Laine of Delfi Estonia, and Nazira Darimbet of respbulika.kz have contributed to this publication.
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