InstagramHigh-tech equipment made by a UK firm worth$ 2.1m ( £1.6m ) has been sold to companies in Russia connected to the military, customs documents seen by BBC News suggest.
According to the documents, a business that was obviously run by a apparel model shipped the British-made camera lenses.
The British producer, Beck Optronic Solutions, which has worked on British Challenger 2 vehicles and F35 fighter jet, told us it had not breached punishment, had no relations with Russia or Kyrgyzstan, and was aware of the supplies.
Since the start of the Ukrainian War, Russia’s ability to withstand punishment has been questioned by our inspection.
The road led us to Valeria Baigascina, a 25-year-old, actually from the central Asian position of Kazakhstan but presently living in Belarus. A part-time design, she comments constantly about her jet-set attitude on social advertising. In the past two decades she has visited Dubai, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
Our research of customs records revealed that her social media profiles did not indicate that she was also the director of a company that had allegedly given sanctioned Russian companies millions of dollars in gear.
Belarusian subscription information indicates that Ms. Baigascina was the company’s founder and director Rama Group LLC. Set up in February 2023, it is registered to an address in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan- 2, 300 yards (3, 713 miles ) from her residence in Belarus.
Both nations have strong trading ties to Russia, and both are former Communist Unions. Belarus remains Moscow’s strongest alliance in Europe.
According to industry statistics, UK exports to Kyrgyzstan have increased by more than 30 % since the sanctions were imposed in February 2022. Some products, according to experts, have a real destination for Moscow.
According to the BBC’s traditions records, Rama Group reportedly sent two shipments of premium optics to Moscow that can be used in tanks, missiles, and other aircraft.
The technology is listed on the customs kind as being made by Beck Optronic Solutions in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. High-quality lens used in surveillance and targeting methods are produced by the company.
Though some of its lens are used in medical and engineering, Beck’s site details substantial military and defence applications.
The lenses and optical technology Beck Optronics sells are particularly categorized as items that need UK regulators ‘ approval before selling them.
The BBC has identified, through customs documents, a total of six shipments of products said to have been made by Beck with a total value of$ 2.1m ( £1.6m ) and transferred to Moscow through Rama and another intermediary company, Shisan LLC.
Rama Group sent two supplies to Moscow in December 2023 and January 2024, which were described as “rotating parts of camera.” These shipments went to Sol Group, a company based in Smolensk, 200 miles ( 320km ) south-west of Moscow, which has been sanctioned by the US.
The documents indicate that some of the shipments may have really flowed from Thailand, but it’s unclear which global route the goods traveled.
Shisan LLC, another Kyrgyz company, was responsible for four further shipments of Beck Optronics ‘ products worth$ 1.5m ( £1.1m ).
The Ural Optical &, Mechanical Plant, which manufactures bomb-aiming products and is also sanctioned for its connections to the Soviet army, received two of those supplies, one of which involved” short-wave infrared camera lenses.”
In Bishkek, a contemporary five-storey wall in a profitable area of the city, Rama Group and Shisan share the same handle. Nonetheless, we were informed that Valeria Baigascina was traveling abroad on a business trip when we arrived.
Through her social media posts, we obtained her phone number and filed our complaints against her.
InstagramMs. Baigascina claimed to have founded the business, but she sold it in May. She denied the claims, saying that when she had owned it, “nothing like that was supplied”. Finally she snorted.
Afterward, by email, she told us the complaints were “ridiculous” and based on “false knowledge”.
Our studies shows that in May this month she sold Rama Group to her best friend, Angelina Zhurenko, who runs a clothing company in Kazakhstan.
According to Ms. Zhurenko,” Investing activities are only conducted within the existing Kyrgyzstani law.” The business does not offend any restrictions. Any additional data is false”.
InstagramThe chairman of the other auxiliary business, Shisan, is listed as Evgeniy Anatolyevich Matveev. We sent him an email with our complaints.
He claimed that our knowledge was “false” and that he owned” a business supplying exclusively human goods made in Eastern nations.”
Because it is difficult to forbid free trade in Asian items available for sale and supply, he continued,” This does not reject the laws of the state in which I work, and it does not have anything to do with US punishment.”
No information exists that Beck Optronics was aware of these shipment details or that Russia was the final location.
Beck, the company, claimed that nothing about the supplies had to do with UK export controls or UK restrictions. It has n’t had any business dealings with any parties or businesses in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, or Thailand, and has n’t received any goods to these countries.
It thinks some of the products on the list was not even produced by the manufacturer and that some customs records may have been forged.
These alleged exports are, however, a component of a much larger image involving shipping coming from a variety of sources.
According to the Washington-based safety think tank C4ADS, Shisan completed 373 supplies from Kyrgyzstan to Russia between July and December 2023, according to an analysis of norms records from C4ADS.
Of these, 288 contained products that fall under traditions standards for “high-priority field things”.
Over the same six-month phase, Rama Group completed a full of 1, 756 supplies to Russia. Of these, 1, 355 were for products on the “high-priority field things” record.
Its most recent supplies, including technology by US and UK businesses, went to a Russian firm named Titan-Mikro, which has been subject to US restrictions since May 2023 for operating within Russia’s military business.
” When they sell this technology to a customer who is likely a Soviet end-user, they entirely should know that this is to eliminate people”, says Olena Tregub from NAKO, Ukraine’s separate anti-corruption company.
She warns that lives are being lost due to the restrictions ‘ regime’s flaws.
” Without those solutions, those weapons had not journey. The mind of those ballistic rockets, the mind of those bomber drones, are made of Eastern technology”, she says.
Getty ImagesInternational regulators are aware of Kyrgyzstan’s part in sanctions avoidance.
In April, UK’s foreign minister at the time, David Cameron, travelled to Bishkek and urged the Kyrgyz officials to do more to strengthen their punishment ‘ conformity.
The Kyrgyz leader hoped Lord Cameron’s formal visit would “give new life to multidimensional co-operation between Kyrgyzstan and the UK” as he hoped.
According to David O’Sullivan, the EU’s Special Envoy for the Application of Punishment, “illicit purchasing sites” are still being investigated and” companies are required to conduct due diligence investigations to know who is the ultimate end-user and where “fieldworks” ultimately end up.