Over the past year, 2000 Czech rifles were imported to Russia via Turkey bypassing Turkey
Earlier, a video about the visit of representatives of a Russian company to the Turkish Huglu factory was posted on the YouTube channel
Last year, the Alliance trading network managed to import about 2,000 hunting rifles of the Czech brand Česká Zbrojovka (CZ) to Russia, despite the ban on the sale of weapons to Russia imposed by the European Union in 2014.
Source. This is stated in the investigation of the Czech media Investigace.cz.
In addition to Zlajovka, Alliance cooperates with two other Czech companies: optics manufacturer Meopta and ammunition manufacturer Sellier & Bellot. Last autumn, Alliance opened a new store in St. Petersburg, where you can buy two dozen models of CZ rifles.
Investigace.cz journalists managed to uncover one of the routes by which Česká Zbrojovka products are being smuggled into Russia. The Turkish company Huglu Av Tufekleri Kooperatifi manufactures hunting and sporting weapons under Czech licence under the CZ-USA and CZ brands at its plant in Turkey.
At the same time, Huglu is a supplier of hunting rifles to the Alliance. At the same time, representatives of Huglu told journalists that they knew nothing about the export of their weapons to Russia, and CZ's external relations manager Radek Hauerland said that "since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Česká Zbrojovka has not exported any weapons to Russia and has not given any of its partners consent to export to Russia".
New carbine models manufactured by Huglu in cooperation with CZ were presented at the OrelExpo arms fair last autumn at Gostiny Dvor in Moscow.
However, both the Turkish and Czech companies deny any involvement in the event.
"If the CZ brand or CZ products were presented here, it happened without the knowledge of Česká Zbrojovka," Hauerland said.
At the same time, the authors of the investigation found dozens of references to the supply of Czech CZ rifles and Turkish Huglu smoothbore shotguns on Alliance's social media. In December 2022, a 40-minute video about the visit of representatives of a Russian company to the Huglu factory was posted on the Alliance Media YouTube channel.
Background. Earlier, it was reported that Italian companies were supplying weapons to Russia "as if nothing had happened". In particular, Italian Beretta and other European arms manufacturers supply their products to Russia despite the sanctions.
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