Companies from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan help Russia circumvent US and European Union sanctions.

This is stated in the investigation of the Schemes project.

With the help of companies in these countries, Russia imports Western electronic equipment for its military equipment.

RFE/RL journalists found evidence of the supply of dual-use Western goods to Russia through these countries. Among these goods are microchips, telecommunications equipment and other electronics, which the Ukrainian military have found, in particular, in Russian missiles, tanks, helicopters, drones and radio systems, which the occupation army of the Russian Federation is using in a full-scale war against Ukraine.

At the same time, the scale of these deliveries, compared to the previous years, has increased “dozens of times”. Kyrgyz and Kazakh companies are involved in the deliveries, some of which were created after February 24, 2022 and have Russian roots.

In particular, it regards several companies in Kazakhstan that started supplying Russia with dual-purpose goods after the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation in Ukraine.

One of them is EltexAlatau, which supplies chips from the US company Analog Devices for Sosna-U sights, that equip Russian T-72B3M tanks. Its official partners are the Russian Eltex-MSK and Eltex, which cooperate with the Ministry of Defense and the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. The Kazakh company also has a common shareholder with Eltex, who is a Russian businessman Aleksei Chernikov.

Another company – Astaris from Astana, created two months after the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, also supplies dual-purpose products to Russian customers. The owner is Alexander Skorobogaty, an entrepreneur of Belarusian origin. According to customs data, from May to September 2022, this company sent to the New Electronic Company in Smolensk dozens of consignments of Western dual purpose goods.

Another Kazakh company is Elem Group, which was registered on March 14, 2022. It is associated with the Russian Streloy E-Commerce, a company owned by businessman Kirill Tulyakov. The company previously supplied electronics to the companies participating in Russian military-industrial exhibitions.

A fourth Kazakh company, Company Electronics, which is associated with the Russian electronics manufacturer ITC, also supplies parts to Russia. In turn, ITC provides Western technologies to the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “NL Dukhov All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Automation”, where nuclear warheads are developed. For deliveries, the company uses a Lithuanian intermediary – the company OTK Group with Russians on the list of shareholders.

The RM Design and Development company from Kyrgyzstan supplies the Russian company Mikropribor with AD822 operational amplifiers manufactured by the American Analog Devices for the Russian military radio stations. Another Russian company that receives electrical devices from the above-mentioned Kyrgyz company, Region-Prof from St. Petersburg, was one of the suppliers of the Joint Stock Company Penza Electrotechnical Research Institute, which develops secure communication technologies for Russian state security services.

The investigation emphasizes that officials in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have come under pressure from both Moscow and Western governments over the transfer of technology to Russia and have expressed concern about possible secondary sanctions against them from the United States and the European Union.