Special Report Dozens Of Russian Arms Tycoons Face No Western Sanctions

(Reuters) – As the Russian military continues to pound Ukraine with missiles and other deadly weapons, Western nations have responded in part by targeting the Russian defense industry with sanctions. The final round came on Tuesday, when the United States imposed new sanctions on some arms manufacturers and executives at the heart of what they called the “war machine” of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But a Reuters poll of companies, executives and investors supporting Russia’s defense sector shows that a fairly large number of players have not yet paid the price: Nearly three dozen leaders of Russian arms companies and at least 14 defense companies have not been sanctioned by the United States. States. of the European Union or of the United Kingdom. In addition, sanctions on Russian arms manufacturers and tycoons have been applied inconsistently by these NATO allies, with some governments imposing sanctions and others not, a Reuters review showed. Among the arms tycoons that have not been sanctioned by any of these three authorities is Alan Lushnikov, the largest shareholder in Kalashnikov Concern JSC, the original manufacturer of the well-known AK-47 assault rifle. Lushnikov owns 75% of the company, according to the latest business records examined by Reuters. The company itself received sanctions from the United States in 2014, the year Russia invaded and annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. The EU and the United Kingdom imposed their own sanctions on Kalashnikov Concern this year. The company accounts for 95% of Russia’s production of machine guns, sniper rifles, pistols and other portable firearms and 98% of its portable military machine guns, according to its website and its most recent annual report. His weapons include the AK-12 assault rifle, an updated version of the AK-47, some of which have been captured by Russian forces from Ukrainian troops. Concern Kalashnikov also produces rockets that can be launched from aircraft or from land. Lusnikov, a former Russian deputy transport minister, once worked for freight tycoon Gennady Timchenko, a longtime friend of Putin’s. The United States imposed sanctions on Timchenko in 2014 following Russia’s invasion of Crimea, calling him a member of the Kremlin’s “inner circle.” Neither Lushnikov, nor Timchenko, nor the Kalashnikov Concern responded to requests for comment. It has the same pattern as Almaz-Antey Concern, a defense company based in Moscow that specializes in missiles and anti-aircraft systems. The company has been punished by the United States, the EU and the United Kingdom, but CEO Yan Novikov has not been punished. Almaz-Antey’s website features the slogan “Peaceful skies are our profession”. The company manufactures Kalibr missiles, which the Russian Ministry of Defense has credited with the destruction of Ukrainian military installations. In a statement last month, the ministry said Russia had fired long-range Kalibr missiles at a Ukrainian military base near the village of Shyroka Dacha in eastern Ukraine, killing more than 50 generals and Ukrainian army officers. Reuters could not independently verify this claim. Neither Almaz-Antey nor CEO Novikov responded to requests for comment. Responding to a list of questions posed by Reuters about Western sanctions targeting Russia, a Kremlin spokesman said: “The consistency and rationale for imposing sanctions, as well as the legitimacy of imposing such restrictions, is a to be placed directly in the countries that imported them “. Reuters’ findings come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the current Western sanctions against Russia were “not enough” as Russian troops made gains in their offensive in eastern Ukraine, Luhansk and Donetsk. The Ukrainian army has outpaced Russian artillery in places such as the industrial city of Sievierodonetsk, which it ceded to Russian forces last week after weeks of intense fighting. Putin has portrayed his military offensive in Ukraine as a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing and “rewarding” its democratic neighbor. On Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that it would ban Jill Biden and Ashley Biden, the wife and daughter of US President Joe Biden, from entering Russia indefinitely, in response to the “continuous expansion of sanctions.” US v. Russian politicians and public figures. ” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday that Russia’s action was not surprising because “Russia’s ability to make such cynical moves is basically bottomless.” The Russian invasion has killed thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, but the exact number is unknown. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Monday that 4,731 civilians had been killed in Ukraine since the Russian-led invasion began on February 24, including more than 300 children, and that 5,900 civilians had been injured in the conflict. The agency said most of the casualties were caused by the use of “explosive weapons with a wide range of impact, including heavy artillery and rocket launchers, and rocket and air bombardment”, and that the actual death toll was very high. The West has imposed sanctions on a section of the Russian economy to punish Moscow, an effort that so far has done little to prevent a Russian attack. Like bans on other Russian companies, sanctions on arms companies are intended to impede their ability to sell to foreign customers. These sanctions restrict access to imported components and generally make arms production more costly and time consuming. Sanctioning the people behind these companies goes a step further to make the pain personal. It allows Western nations to hunt down any mansions, yachts and other offshore assets of those supplied by the Russian army and restricts where they can travel abroad. “You show that being a partner in the regime comes at a cost,” said Max Bergman, a former State Department official who worked during the Obama administration to work on arms shipments to the United States and the preservation of US military technology. “It simply came to our notice then. “You are creating a disgruntled class of people connected to the Kremlin,” said Bergman, now director of Europe at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security think tank based in Washington. FIREFIGHTING GROUPS Other companies in the Russian defense industry identified by Reuters that have not been sanctioned by the United States, the European Union or the United Kingdom include the VA Degtyarev plant, a facility 165 miles northeast of Moscow that manufactures machine guns, anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. sold to the Russian army. Its weapons include the PKM and PKTM Kalashnikov machine guns, as well as Kord rifles and machine guns, some of which are mounted on armored vehicles. The Degtyarev plant did not respond to a request for comment. Also, no sanctions have been imposed on the Klimovsk Special Ammunition Factory, south of Moscow, which produces “world-famous cartridges” for Kalashnikov assault rifles and assault rifles, according to an archived version of its website. Not even the Novosibirsk Cartridge Plant, an ammunition maker that calls itself “one of the leading engineering companies in the Russian military-industrial complex.” No ammunition factory responded to requests for comment. Last month, Reuters sought comment from sanctions officials in the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States on the news agency’s findings that it failed to punish a number of Russian defense companies and tycoons that fueled Putin’s war effort. As part of this process, Reuters provided these Western authorities with a detailed list of more than 20 companies and more than three dozen people who had escaped sanctions. The UK Office for Foreign Affairs, Commonwealth and Development, which imposes sanctions on Britain, said it could not comment on future sanctions. He added that London and its allies had imposed “the largest and most severe economic sanctions Russia has ever faced to help cripple Putin’s war machine.” The European Commission and the US Treasury Department, which are handling sanctions on Brussels and Washington respectively, declined to comment on the details of Reuters’ findings. Elizabeth Rosenberg, assistant secretary of state for finance and terrorism at the Treasury Department, said in a statement that sanctions “make it harder for Russia to obtain what it needs to procure and produce weapons.” On Tuesday, in conjunction with a meeting of G7 leaders in the German Alps, the Treasury Department released a new round of defense-related sanctions that included eight of the arms companies and two of the executives on the list given earlier than Reuters. . One of these recently sanctioned executives, Vladimir Artyakov, has played a key role in Russia’s arms industry for decades and serves as the No. 2 executive at Rostec, a military-industrial giant with hundreds of subsidiaries employing more than half a million people. people, according to the site and its annual reports. Artyakov is also the president of at least five Russian arms companies, including Russian Helicopters JSC, which manufactures several series of military helicopters, including the Ka-52 “Alligator”, some of which have been shot down and documented in Ukraine. He has not been sanctioned by the EU or the United Kingdom. Artyakov and Russian Helicopters did not respond to a request for comment. Rostec has been subject to sanctions by Washington since 2014. On Tuesday, the United States again targeted the company, imposing sanctions on more than 40 Rostec subsidiaries and affiliates. Among those hit was Avtomatika Concern, a company linked to cyber warfare. It was on the list of Russian defense companies that Reuters submitted to the Ministry of Finance last month asking for explanations as to why the companies had not been sanctioned. Rostec and …