At least 130-million-euro-worth of dual-use goods have been shipped through Lithuania to Russia since the start of the Ukraine invasion. The shipments are routed via countries such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan. Lithuanian companies involved in the exports claim they did not know that the dual-use goods and technologies would eventually end up in Russia.
The LRT Investigation Team reported in early April that a company owned by Kaunas Mayor Visvaldas Matijošaitis and his business partner Liudas Skieras was transporting so-called battlefield goods – sanctioned items that can be used in war industries – to Russia.
However, this company, Plungės Kooperatinė Prekyba, is not the only Lithuanian enterprise that transported dual-use goods to Russia during the war.
Further reading
The LRT Investigation Team’s analysis shows that Lithuania has become a gateway for dual-use goods to enter Russia.
Between March 2022 and August 2023, battlefield goods worth at least 130 million euros passed through Lithuania to Russia. This information was collected using the customs data aggregator ImportGenius.
Goods that travelled to Russia are included in a joint EU and partner (US, UK, Japan) list of priority items found in Russian arms. The list includes around half a dozen different goods and technologies.
The investigation shows that more than 70 Lithuanian companies have helped send these items to Russia more than once. In many cases, the goods were destined for Central Asian countries, but never reached them, ending up in Russia instead.
Companies from Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, China participated in export schemes to Russia.
“The European Union does not prohibit the shipment of such goods to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia... If these goods are put into circulation in those countries, nobody knows and does not control where they could be transported to next,” Arūnas Adomėnas, senior adviser of the Operational and Non-Tariff Measures Control Division of the Lithuanian Customs Service, commented to LRT.
Last summer, the government adopted national sanctions banning the overland transport of certain dual-use goods to non-EU countries via Lithuania.
This analysis is based on data up to August 2023, before the introduction of tougher restrictions.
Bearings, signal generators, monitoring and measuring instruments, machine tools, processors and controllers, integrated circuits, capacitors, antennas, radio navigation apparatus, electrical devices or components, semiconductor devices, and other dual-purpose goods were shipped to Russia during the war.
Among the Lithuanian companies that participated in the exports were electronics and car parts traders, logistics companies, customs brokers. The companies that responded to LRT’s requests for comment do not admit any wrongdoing, either denying that they exported the goods or that they were destined for the Russian market.
Microchips from Lithuania for Russian radar developers
Despite Western sanctions aimed at Russia’s war industry, technology from the world’s biggest chipmakers continues to reach the country.
Late last summer, an investigation by The Insider revealed that during the first eight months of the war, American microchips from Texas Instruments and Analog Devices were imported into Russia for almost 140 million US dollars. These parts are found in Russian missiles and satellite communications systems. Lithuania was among the countries from which the chips were shipped.
Onsemi, Microchip Technology, Altera Corp, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices – these are just some of the American chip brands that have found their way to Russia through Lithuanian companies.
One of the companies that helped American microchips reach Russia, according to LRT’s research, is Zetemžėja, a Klaipėda-based transport service provider.
Zetemžėja was founded in 2018 and has only two employees. Konstantin Samarskov, the current shareholder and CEO, owns six other logistics companies. All but one of them have failed to submit their 2022 financial reports to the Centre of Registers and are therefore at risk of fines or liquidation.
“When the time comes, we will submit them,” Samarskov said by phone when asked about the missing financial reports.
Zetemžėja is one of the companies that withheld its financial reports for 2022, the first year of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine.
However, import data to Russia show that the company engaged in trade. Following the invasion, Zetemžėja’s exports to Russia increased significantly. Having previously exported mainly household appliances – washing machines, dishwashers, ovens – the company started shipping microchips in November 2022.
On seven different dates, several hundred shipments of dual-use goods – microchips, integrated circuits, electrical components – were sent to Russia.
The import documents also mention an intermediary, the Belarusian company SkyGlobal. The shareholder of this company is a Belarusian citizen, Sergei Khvalko, whose name has already appeared in the Ukrainian media for his active export of sanctioned electronics to Russia.
Two Russian companies were at the receiving end.
The first is called Novaya Elektronaya Kompaniya (New Electronics Company), a wholesaler of electronic and telecommunications equipment.
The second is Bulat, a Russian telecoms and IT equipment developer. It is owned by Rostelecom, Russia’s digital services provider, and the state-owned Science and Production Centre Elvis. The latter is one of the leading chip design centres in Russia. It develops surveillance systems as well as radars to detect and track ground and air targets.
From 2022, Elvis is under US sanctions for its “critical role in assisting the Russian military invasion of Ukraine”.
Samarskov, the owner of Zetemžėja, said by phone that the Lithuanian company was shipping to Russia goods excluded from sanctions:
“There is a big company there, a lot of goods, and we were selling to them and providing transport services, but these were goods not on the sanctions list at the time,” he insisted.
Samarskov became the sole shareholder of Zetemžėja in 2022. Before that, the Klaipėda-based company was also co-owned by Alexander Skorobogaty, a Belarusian citizen, and Sergey Malkov, a Russian citizen residing in Minsk.
“They are my partners, good friends with whom I have worked for more than 10 years,” explained Samarskov.
Skorobogaty currently owns a company named Astaris in Astana, Kazakhstan, which was founded in April 2022, a few months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He is also a shareholder in Vitovt-Rus, a logistics company in Smolensk.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) has previously reported that the Kazakh company Astaris has been supplying dual-use products to Russian customers.
Between May and September 2022, Astaris sent dozens of shipments of Western dual-use items that fall under seven of the nine categories on the US “high-priority” sanctioned items because they were found in Russian weapons used in Ukraine.
New directions and mysterious companies
Delamode Baltics is a freight company owned by the international Delamode Group. Last year, the Estonian private equity fund BaltCap became one of its indirect shareholders.
The company is recognised as one of the leaders in the transport sector. Delamode Baltics has won public procurement contracts worth 1.7 million euros, and its clients include the State Border Guard Service, the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, the Lithuanian Armed Forces and others. The company is also announced to have contributed to the NATO Summit in Lithuania in 2023.
The year 2022 was a particularly successful one for Delamode Baltics. The company’s net profit more than doubled, to almost 16 million euros.
Delamode Baltics has also started promoting new destinations. “You may think we work mainly in Europe, but Delamode Baltics also operates in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Armenia, and Turkey,” the company posted on social media.
All of these countries do not impose sanctions on Russia, while Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Armenia are in a customs union with Russia.
Evidence available to the LRT Investigation Team suggests that Delamode Baltics may have brokered the export of battlefield goods to Russia on at least 10 occasions. The goods shipped included bearings, electronic devices, components, processors and controllers. ImportGenius data indicate that the goods may have entered Russia via Georgia.
However, Delamode Baltics denies exporting to Russia.
“In all these cases, our customers were European Union companies and the shipments were made within the European Union. With the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine on 24 February [2022], our company put together a strategy to stop all shipments to and from Russia. Delamode Baltics does not transport goods to or from Russia,” Justas Veršnickas, CEO and one of the shareholders of Delamode Baltics, assured in his written comment to LRT.
Representatives of the company also participated in TransLogistica Kazakhstan trade show in 2022 and 2023. In several photos shared on social media, Delamode Baltics operations director and board member Anastasija Jakovleva and Jelena Tkačenko, then head of the CIS Department, pose at the company’s booth at the Kazakhstan show.
Even before the trade show, in August 2023, Tkačenko set up a company in Turkey, Westeast Lojistik. According to the Istanbul Commercial Register, Tkačenko is a partner in the company. In December last year, a company with a similar name, Westeast Logistics, was established in Lithuania. Its founder and owner is Tkačenko.
Westeast Logitics is registered at the address close to Delamode Baltics, on Naugarduko Street in Vilnius.
On its website, the company at one point described its services thus: “Through strategic air routes and partnerships, we ensure on-time deliveries to key destinations such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, and Belarus.”
However, once LRT approached Tkačenko for comment, references to Russia and Belarus were removed from the website. In a written reply, the owner of Westeast Logistics avoided the question about deliveries to Russia.
“Westeast Logistics does not provide services to sanctioned companies and does not transport sanctioned or unauthorised goods. Westeast Logistics focuses on freight transport between Asian countries – China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and the Caucasus, Turkey – and European countries. The company has yet to finalise its new business strategy and model,” wrote Tkačenko.
She also said she was no longer an employee of Delamode Baltics.
Westeast Logistics says it has offices in Turkey and Greece. Another related company, West East Hellas, is registered in Greece at the address given in early 2024. The company’s incorporation documents mention Jakovleva, a board member at Delamode Baltics.
LRT has not received any comment from Jakovleva herself about links between the company in Greece and Delamode Baltics and another company in Turkey. Meanwhile, Demalode Baltics CEO and shareholder Veršnickas said he was not aware of this information and denied any links between the companies.
“We will find out. If we see a conflict of interest, we will draw conclusions,” he said.
Exports by a ghost company
Another company, Baunersa, is also on the imports documents. It is registered in the Lazdynai district of Vilnius, in an apartment whose address is shared by more than 1,000 other companies.
According to the information provided to the Centre of Registers, the director of Baunersa passed away in 2019, and no information about the new director is provided. The last time the company submitted financial reports was back in 2017. At the beginning of last year, the Registrar initiated the liquidation of Baunersa.
Although the company would appear to be out of business, Russian import data suggests otherwise. Baunersa started appearing in import documents in December 2022. Goods were actively shipped to Russia under its name in 2023, when Baunersa was being liquidated in Lithuania.
The recipient of most of the goods is Elektron-Prof, a supplier of electrical equipment in Russia. It indicates that its customers are energy complexes, chemical and petroleum industries, metallurgical companies. Elektron-Prof’s revenues grew almost four times last year.
Electrical components, wire and cable connectors, contact elements were shipped to Elektron-Prof and included in the sanctions. In addition to Baunersa, the Uzbek logistics company Unex Tashkent was also involved in this export chain.
The LRT Investigation Team tried to contact Bauners, but the only phone number given was for Juriscon, a company dealing with company registration.
The shareholders of Baunersa, according to data from 2017, are Gulnara Ovchininkova, a Russian citizen, and Sergey Voznesensky, a resident of Estonia. The latter owns Logistmark in Estonia, which has no employees and has not provided financial information since 2017.
Voznesensky insists that Baunersa discontinued operations after the death of its director in 2019 and did not have any transactions with Russia after the war broke out: “Trade with Russia took place before the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine.”
Unexpected profits amid the war
Another Lithuanian company, Argo LT, appears on the declarations of 65,000 goods that have reached Russia since the start of the war. This includes more than 500 consignments of potentially dual-use goods and technology. The documents show that the goods went to two companies: Fatur, a Russian seller of car parts, and Unex Tashkent, an Uzbek logistics company.
On its official website, Argo LT makes no secret of the direction of its exports. The company says it exports to Russia via the port of Klaipėda, and provides warehousing and customs brokerage services. Information on Argo LT’s website is in Russian only.
According to the Centre of Registers, the company’s revenue grew 14.6 times in 2022 and its net profit went up 6.5 times.
Argo LT was founded in March 2014 by Andrey Khvorov, a Russian national. Later, Saulius Jurkulnevičius, a Lithuanian, joined as a shareholder and is currently the company’s CEO.
Argo LT states on its website that it has an office in Moscow. The logistics company Raten, owned by Khvorov, is in fact based there. In the summer of 2022, Khvorov established a small partnership under the same name in Kaunas, MB Raten. It claims to be engaged in business consultancy and other activities. However, the company has no employees and generates no income.
Jurkulnevičius promised to explain Argo LT’s exports in written answers when contacted by the LRT Investigation Team by phone, but never returned any emails.
Goods for Kyrgyzstan landed in Russia
One of the companies most frequently mentioned in documents on shipments from Lithuania to Russia is Autoverslo Logistika. This year, the company changed its name to Logispace.
Documents show that dual-use goods and technology were shipped to Russia on behalf of German, Italian, Czech, and Greek companies through Logispace. It also handled shipments from the Lithuania-based electronic components supplier FEK Company.
The FEK Group was founded in Belarus in 1993 and has been operating in Lithuania since 2012. The owner of FEK Company is Belarusian citizen Alexander Famin. FEK Company exported capacitors and diodes to Ritel, a Russian seller of electrical products.
Capacitors are an indispensable element in electronics. Russia has hardly any production capacity, but they are used in unmanned aerial vehicles.
In addition to FEK Company and Logispace, this logistics chain includes WorlWide Group KG, which was registered in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in August 2022. It is documented as the intermediary of the recipient.
“We were approached by a Kyrgyz company in autumn 2022 and made two small sales, one in December 2022 and the other in February 2023. The goods were picked up and exported by another Lithuanian company, so we cannot comment on what happened to the goods. We have not cooperated with Autoverslo Logistika,” FEK Company’s representatives stated in their written reply.
Logispace itself claims that the goods were destined for Kyrgyzstan, not Russia. “It is important to note that the logistics chain is a long and complex process involving many legal entities. The companies you mentioned were not our customers, but some of them were the shippers. According to documents in our possession, the shipments of the goods sent by these companies took place in February and March 2023 and were destined for Kyrgyzstan and not for Russia,” it stated in a written comment.
Sanctioned customers
Other recipients of Logispace’s cargo include Russian companies on the US and Ukraine sanctions lists. These are Radiotekhsnab, Saturn EK, a supplier of electronic components, and Staut, a developer of electronic engineering devices, including robotic systems. These companies were included in the US sanctions because they supplied sensitive dual-use items to Russian defence sector entities.
“Our Group is committed to preventing our services from being used to indirectly contribute to any pro-war activities. Logispace’s management has decided to tighten the regulation of the shipment of goods from this year onwards and to refuse transporting goods on the EU’s high priority list of war zone items to all buffer countries,” Logispace said in a reply.
Liability of intermediaries
Logispace (formerly Autoverslo Logistics) is also mentioned in an investigation published last month by The Insider. The report described capacitors travelling to Russia from Israel, El Salvador, or China despite sanctions. Lithuanian companies were said to have handled customs paperwork. Declarations obtained by The Insider show that the parts were brought into Lithuania for later shipment to Russia.
Another company mentioned in the report is Vingės Transsphere Logistika.
Documents in the possession of the LRT Investigation Team show that Vingės group companies – Vingės Terminalas and Vingės Transsphere Logistika – were also involved in the supply of data transmission devices, diodes, optical components and bearings to Russia. The services were mainly provided on behalf of companies in Turkey and Kazakhstan.
In response to questions from LRT, representatives of the Vingės group stated that they do not export anything, only provide warehousing and customs brokerage services.
“Our warehouses aggregate cargo from all over the world, from different manufacturers and of different uses. All goods in the warehouses are subject to customs supervision and all goods leaving the warehouses for third countries are declared to customs,” the statement reads.
In addition to the companies described above, the LRT Investigation Team sent questions to 14 more Lithuanian companies that have appeared at least a few dozen times in Russian import documents since the beginning of the Ukraine war. More than half of them, 10 companies, have yet to provide answers one month later.
Those that have responded insist that they are not responsible for exports to Russia. They claim they simply provided warehousing and customs brokerage services or did not know that the goods would be sent to Russia.
The Lithuanian Customs explains that services such as export documentation, transport or warehousing would not be considered intermediation under the EU Sanctions Regulation, but are still prohibited.
“Intermediation means providing services of negotiating a purchase, a sale or supply of goods between a third country and a third country, or purchasing and selling such goods from one third country to another. This is intermediation. Meanwhile, customs brokers, logistics companies, in the opinion of the Lithuanian Customs, perform other kinds of services. The Regulation also prohibits providing other services related to the supply of such goods to Russia. In our view, customs brokers and logistics companies could be treated as providing other services related to the supply of goods,” explains Adomėnas of the Lithuanian Customs.
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