After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, premium cars, the export of which is banned due to sanctions imposed by Western companies, have been imported to Russia via Belarus. Businessmen associated with Alexander Lukashenko's entourage are involved in the supply chain.
Source. This is reported in a joint investigation by the Bureau, Verstka, and Cyberpartisan.
In total, about a thousand premium cars from Europe and the United States worth more than $100 million were imported to Russia through Belarus. Among the delivered cars are models such as the Rolls-Royce Cullinan crossover worth about $630,000, the Ferrari SF90 Stradale sports car worth $530,000, and the Lamborghini Urus04.
The sanctions prohibit the supply of cars to Russia that cost more than 50,000 euros.
However, Belarus is not subject to these restrictions, so local companies resell cars from the EU under the "parallel import" scheme.
Not only private individuals, but also state-owned Russian companies, including the Avtodom holding.
More than 30 Belarusian companies supply premium cars of Western brands from Belarus to Russia. Several of them are linked to the Belarusian authorities. For example, Zip-Line is owned by Andrei Piskaryou, who worked for businessman Yury Chizh, who was called Lukashenka's "wallet."
The company "Custom Service" is headed by Vitaly Sobolevsky, deputy head of the Association of Customs Representatives of Belarus. Feliks, the son of former high-ranking internal troops officer Igor Dzeranov, is the owner of Techno-Jet Group.
Customs data confirm that the total volume of machinery shipments from the EU to Belarus has quadrupled since the start of the Russian invasion, exceeding €1.7 billion this year.
The main suppliers are Germany, Lithuania, and Poland. Almost 60,000 cars were delivered to Belarus in the first nine months of 2023.
Background. As a reminder, Russia will present Lukashenko with a Volvo plant near Kaluga. The Belarusian Embassy has compiled a list of facilities abandoned by Western companies that Minsk is interested in.