It seems that sanctions are more rhetoric than reality in war. It makes sense: They must be too complicated, and there’s too much money at stake to think they’re impregnable. In light of the invasion of Ukraine, it is known and known that the United States and its allies have been trying for months to impose this international sanction, which will allegedly erode the Russian nation’s capacity to rearm. It doesn’t always seem to have been successful, but few could guess who might be behind it.

From England to Russia. The story is told solely by the BBC. British media have obtained customs documents revealing the distribution of a number of high-precision lenses produced by Beck Optronic Solutions, a British company with technology experience for Challenger 2 tanks and F-35 aircraft, and sent to Russia through intermediaries registered in Kyrgyzstan. .

This equipment, valued at $2.1 million, is designed for surveillance and guidance applications and is on the lists of goods that are prohibited for export to Russia or require special permits. But there is so much more. The name behind all these logistics answers Valeria Baigascina, a 25-year-old young woman who is originally from the Central Asian province of Kazakhstan but now lives in Belarus.

Influential. Apparently, Baigascina is a part-time swimsuit model who regularly posts about her luxurious lifestyle on social media. According to British media, the influencer has traveled to Dubai, Sri Lanka and Malaysia in the last two years. But his networks did not show that he was also the director of the company that transferred all the equipment worth millions of dollars to sanctioned companies in Russia.

According to Belarusian registry data, Baigascina was the founder and director of a company called Rama Group LLC. Created in February 2023, this project is registered with an address in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, 3,713 kilometers from its home in Belarus. The BBC also reminds us that both countries are former Soviet states with strong commercial ties with Russia. Belarus, meanwhile, remains Moscow’s strongest ally in Europe.

Rama Group and shipments. Baigascina’s company, Rama Group, shipped two packages of these lenses, labeled “rotating camera parts,” directly to Moscow, which then arrived at U.S.-sanctioned Sol Group. In addition, other shipments were handled by Shisan LLC, a Kyrgyz company that shares management with Rama Group, which completed four additional shipments, including shortwave infrared lenses destined for Russian optical facilities associated with bombing equipment.

What do those involved say? Baigascina denied any involvement in the illicit shipments, claiming that he sold the Rama Group to his friend Angelina Zhurenko in May 2023. In contrast, Zhurenko, who owns an underwear business in Kazakhstan, insisted that all of the company’s business activities were legal.

Beck Optronics, for its part, sought to disentangle any inferences by declaring that it had no knowledge of these shipments or any connection to Russia or Kyrgyzstan, and also arguing that customs documents might have been falsified by someone.

The magnitude of the problem. An analysis of the documents conducted by the C4ADS think tank revealed revealing data. Namely: Shisan LLC made 373 shipments to Russia between July and December 2023, 288 of which contained goods considered priority for the battlefield.

Not only this. During the same period, Rama Group made 1,756 shipments; of these, 1,355 corresponded to items on those lists. These include electronic components produced by American and British companies that went to Titan-Mikro, a Russian company sanctioned for its involvement in the military sector.

Impact on sanctions. Along the lines we noted at the beginning regarding the real impact of sanctions, experts in this field, such as Olena Tregub of Ukraine’s anti-corruption organization NAKO, seem to be finding the key. In this case, Tregub warns that this lack of control over supply chains is exactly what allows Western technology to continue fueling the military efforts of a sanctioned country, in this case Russia.

According to the expert, “without these technologies, these weapons cannot work.” In other words, information obtained by the BBC reveals loopholes in sanctions regimes that facilitate Russia’s access to components needed for ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Kyrgyzstan’s role. The region, which has close commercial ties with Russia, appears to have emerged as a key point for the diversion of sanctioned goods. Indeed, in April 2024, then-British Foreign Secretary David Cameron visited Bishkek to urge local authorities to improve compliance with sanctions. But according to the BBC, recent reports suggest illicit procurement networks continue to operate with relative impunity.

A ban that doesn’t work. As we said at the beginning, it seems utopian to think that the international material flow to a country like Russia can be closed only by sanctions. In this context, David O’Sullivan, the EU’s special envoy responsible for the implementation of sanctions, underlined that efforts should continue to eliminate these networks and strengthen controls.

The executive also insisted that companies must carry out comprehensive checks to ensure that products do not fall into the hands of sanctioned end users (in this case, the military in Russia), and also emphasized that strict compliance with sanctions is “vital to limit capabilities”. Kremlin battle.

Image | Defense Images, Instagram

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