We are talking about such concerns as Kalashnikov, Rostec or titanium supplier Avisma Corp.
Almost three dozen heads of Russian enterprises that produce weapons and at least 14 defense companies have not yet been sanctioned by the United States, the European Union or the United Kingdom, Reuters writes in its material.
Among the arms tycoons who have not been sanctioned by any from the three countries the largest shareholder of Concern Kalashnikov JSC Alan Lushnikov, which owns 75% of the manufacturer of the famous AK-47 assault rifle. The company itself came under US sanctions in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. This year, the EU and Great Britain introduced their own sanctions against the Kalashnikov concern.
According to the latest annual report, the company accounts for 95% of Russian production of machine guns, sniper rifles, pistols and other small firearms, as well as 98% of military handguns. The Kalashnikov concern also produces missiles that can be launched both from an airplane and from the ground.
The picture is similar with the Almaz-Antey concern, a Moscow defense company that specializes in on missiles and anti-aircraft systems. The company was sanctioned by the US, the EU and the UK, but CEO Jan Novikov was not punished. The company produces Kalibr missiles, which Russia regularly uses to strike Ukraine.
Other companies in Russia's defense industry that have not been sanctioned by the United States, the EU or the United Kingdom include VA Degtyarev Plant (ZDEGI.MM), a Moscow Oblast company that makes machine guns, anti-tank and anti-tank machine guns are aircraft weapons sold to the Russian military. Its armament includes Kalashnikov PKM and PKTM machine guns, as well as Kord rifles and machine guns, some of which are mounted on armored vehicles.
Also not subject to sanctions Klimovsky Specialized Ammunition Plant, which produces “world-famous cartridges” for Kalashnikov pistols and assault rifles. As well as the Novosibirsk Ammunition Plant, which is a manufacturer of ammunition.
Also read: Companies from nine countries hit the US “blacklist” for violating sanctions laws
On Tuesday, after the meeting of the G7 leaders, the US Treasury Department published a new package of sanctions, which covered eight arms companies and two executives from the Reuters list.
One of those who just recently fell under sanctions, Volodymyr Artyakov, has played a key role in the Russian arms industry for decades and is the No. 2 manager at Rostec,a military-industrial giant with hundreds of subsidiaries employing more than half a million people. Artyakov is also the chairman of at least five Russian arms firms, including Russian Helicopters JSC, which builds several lines of military helicopters, including the Ka-52 Alligator . At the same time, it has not yet been sanctioned by either the EU or Great Britain.
Rostec itself has been under Washington sanctions since 2014, and now the US has imposed sanctions on more than 40 subsidiaries and affiliates of Rostec. Among them is the Avtomatika concern, a company associated with cyberwarfare.
PJSC Tupolev, a manufacturer of fighter jets, was also included in the sanctions list. text-decoration: underline;”>bomber Tu-22M3. Nevertheless, the company, like JSC VNII Signal, was not sanctioned by either the EU or Great Britain. The latter is a manufacturer of mechanical and navigation systems that are equipped with Russian military tanks and some of the country's most advanced missile systems.
“Meanwhile, the management of many Russian arms firms largely escaped sanctions from Western authorities. “Almost three months after the Tochka-U ballistic missile hit the railway station in Kramatorsk on April 8, Russian military leaders associated with the company that produces these missiles have still not paid the price,” the newspaper writes.< /p>
The main producer of Point-U missiles, according to the US Army database of world military equipment, is the Russian company JSC ” Research and Production Corporation “Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering”.”, known as KBM. Neither Washington, nor Brussels, nor London have so far included Sergey Pitikov, CEO of KBM, on the sanctions list.
The three Western allies also spared Alexander Denisov, CEO of Vysokotochni Systymes, NPO. parent company KBM, which oversees the production of a wide range of rockets, artillery, grenade launchers and machine guns used by the Russian military and equipped with military helicopters, planes, tanks and warships.
Also, Europe and the United States have not been able to coordinate sanctions even against the manufacturers of prohibited weapons, such as the reactive multiple fire system “Hurricane”, which is used for shelling cluster bombs. “Uragan” is produced by JSC “Splav Scientific-Production Association”. The company was under sanctions from the United States, but not from Great Britain or the EU, and its CEO Oleksandr Smirnov avoided sanctions altogether.
About the same applies to the parent company of “Splava” — NPK “Tehmash”. The United States and the EU have imposed sanctions on the firm, but the United Kingdom has not. Oleksandr Kochkin, CEO of Techmash, was not targeted by either American or European authorities.
One of the most famous Russian companies that escaped Western sanctions is VSMPO-Avisma Corp (VSMO.MM)< /strong> , which is the world's largest supplier of titaniumand 25% of whose shares belong to Rostech. It supplies the Russian defense industry, but also has large Western aerospace companies among its customers.
The company is located in central Russia, but has subsidiaries with operations in the United States, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, as well as sales and distribution offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia. This is undoubtedly a factor that allowed the company to avoid punishment, according to defense experts interviewed by the agency. Vice-Chairman of the Board and majority shareholder of VSMPO-Avisma, Russian billionaire Mykhailo Shelkov, who was ranked 59th on the Forbes list among the richest people in Russia this year, was also not sanctioned.
According to official data, VSMPO-Avisma has long-term contracts for the supply of titanium to United Aircraft Corp, a subsidiary of Rostec, which controls the production of Russian fighters such as Su-34.Nevertheless, United Aircraft has come under US, EU and UK sanctions.
VSMPO-Avisma also sells products to the European Airbus and until March supplied them to the American aerospace giant Boeing Co. Boeing said in a statement that it had been working to diversify its titanium sources around the world since 2014, while Airbus said potential sanctions against Russian titanium “would cause enormous damage to the entire aerospace industry in Europe” but would not harm Russia because these sales represent only a small fraction of that country's total exports. Nevertheless, according to the company's latest annual report, in 2020 sales abroad accounted for about two-thirds of VSMPO-Avisma's revenue of $1.25 billion.
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Britain's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Department, which imposes sanctions, said it could not comment on future sanctions and said London and its allies had imposed “the most extensive and severe economic sanctions Russia has ever faced to help break the military Putin's car”.
The European Commission and the US Treasury Department, which handle sanctions on behalf of Brussels and Washington, respectively, declined to comment on the Reuters report. Elizabeth Rosenberg, assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes at the Treasury Department, said the sanctions “have made it more difficult for Russia to get what it needs to buy and manufacture weapons.”
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