Lithuanian industrial equipment, parts and metal products were brought to Russia in 2024, LRT RADIO reported on Thursday adding that it cannot be ruled out that some of those products could have been used in the Kremlin’s war industry.
According to data collected by LRT RADIO from Russian customs, at least five companies operating in Lithuania exported various metal parts to Russia last year.
Arūnas Pūkelis, CEO of FASA, a company based in the southern town of Marijampolė whose products were brought to Russia, said he did not know how its products could have reached the sanctioned country.
According to him, the company sells products intended for the food industry in other post-Soviet countries such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, but mostly trades with Europe.
Fasa’s products were imported to Russia by Egli Fasa Rus, a company that had previously been Pūkelis company’s representative in Russia, according to LRT RADIO. The company has now been transferred to the Swiss, Pūkelis said.
Tsila, a Vilnius-registered company owned by Uladzimir Voltau, a Belarusian citizen living in Lithuania, also exported various metal products to Russia.
However, he denied to LRT RADIO that Tsila had exported much to Russia last year.
Denys Karlovskyi, a researcher with the Open Source Centre, a UK-based independent research centre, said that parts and equipment from Lithuania could have been used in Russia by military-industrial companies or companies that provide services to the Russian military industry.
“Russian customs declarations do not show that Lithuanian metal products went directly to military-industrial plants in Russia. But we can assume that parts of the machinery equipment may have been used for military-industrial purposes, because the Russian government’s policy says that 70 percent of metal equipment exported to Russia must be used in the military industry,” he told LRT RADIO.
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