German authorities have arrested a man suspected of selling to Russia electronic components used by the army in the war against Ukraine, the German Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) announced on Tuesday.
The announcement comes just days after the arrest in Germany of another suspected of selling military components to Russia, and amid fears that Russian arms manufacturers are circumventing European sanctions.
The suspect now detained, with dual German and Russian nationality, will have exported components on 26 occasions, between January 2020 and March 2023, to a Russian company that manufactures military equipment.
The components in question are used in a type of drone (an unmanned device) manufactured by the Russian company and are covered by the embargo imposed by the European Union (EU) after Moscow annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014.
The 2014 sanctions include a ban on the export of goods and technologies that can be used for military and civilian purposes.
To circumvent EU sanctions, the suspect “usually imported the goods from abroad to Germany and then exported them to Russia,” according to a statement quoted by the French agency AFP.
The components were destined for two Russian-based civilian shell companies, which shipped them to manufacturers of military equipment.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the suspect began shipping the goods to other destinations, including Dubai and Lithuania, with the help of fictitious recipients abroad.
German prosecutors estimate the value of this trade at 715,000 euros.
Another German businessman was arrested in early August on suspicion of having exported equipment to Russia in 2015 to make sniper rifles.
Deliveries, made through third-party companies in Switzerland and Lithuania, amounted to around two million euros.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the EU has tightened the embargo and imposed 11 sanctions packages on Moscow, but the Russian economy has not collapsed.
In July, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock expressed disappointment at the weak impact of the sanctions.
Since the EU imposed the embargoes in 2022, global exports to Central Asian countries have risen sharply, suggesting that sensitive goods are being transferred to Russia via third countries.
In the latest sanctions package, from June, the EU sought to clamp down on the re-export through third countries of technologies likely to be used on the battlefield, such as microchips.
In addition to sanctions against Moscow, Ukraine’s Western allies have been supplying kyiv with weapons to fight Russian troops.
Source: TSF
