The Insider: 6,000 companies trade with Russian legal entities subject to sanctions
12 March 01:16
Journalists from The Insider have identified more than 6,000 companies that conduct business with Russian enterprises and military-industrial complex suppliers that are on the US, UK, and EU sanctions lists. About two-thirds of them are Chinese and Hong Kong companies, with many Turkish, Emirati, and Indian companies among the rest, the publication wrote on Wednesday, March 11, citing its analysis of Russian companies’ foreign trade data for 2024-2025, as reported by "Komersant Ukrainian".
At the same time, two-thirds of trade with sanctioned firms and contractors of the Russian military-industrial complex comes from China, Hong Kong, Turkey, India, and the UAE, the publication notes.
Hundreds of Russian sanctioned companies continue to purchase goods abroad
In addition, The Insider authors identified several hundred Russian importers who continued to purchase goods abroad after being blacklisted due to the war in Ukraine. In doing so, they ignored the risks of their foreign partners, who, in turn, ignored the risks of blockages by banks, the article notes.
The journalistic investigation also identified Russian companies that do not appear on the sanctions lists but resold foreign goods to the military-industrial complex, as well as their own products based on purchased imported components. The Insider published a list of foreign companies it identified that had transactions with these Russian companies.
The authors of the investigation cite as an example the delivery to Russia, in circumvention of sanctions, of more than a hundred turbojet engines worth $3 million by the Chinese company Henan New Silk Road International. The buyer was Chipdevis, a company on the blacklist. “A non-existent company is listed as the manufacturer of the goods. The thrust of such engines is 80 kg, which allows them to be used on large military UAVs,” they note.
The main suppliers of sanctioned companies in Russia are China and Turkey
As The Insider further notes, China is the leader both in terms of the number of companies supplying sanctioned and military Russian companies and in terms of the gross import of goods for these companies. At the same time, Turkey is the leader in terms of the quality of goods supplied to Russian companies associated with the military-industrial complex, specializing in the resale of high-quality Western technology.
“68% of its supplies in the sector of the most high-tech goods (metalworking, non-consumer electronics, optics, equipment for metallurgy and energy, non-domestic measuring instruments) are high-end equipment manufactured in Europe, Japan, and Korea,” the journalists found out.
