The model, British tech and Russia’s war machine

High-tech tools made by a UK agency price $2.1m (£1.6m) has been bought to firms in Russia related to the navy, customs paperwork seen by BBC News recommend.

The paperwork point out the British-made digital camera lenses have been shipped by an organization registered in Kyrgyzstan, apparently run by a swimwear mannequin.

The UK producer, Beck Optronic Solutions, which has labored on British Challenger 2 tanks and F35 fighter jets, instructed us it had not breached sanctions, had no dealings with Russia or Kyrgyzstan, and was unaware of the shipments.

Our investigation raises questions in regards to the effectiveness of sanctions imposed on Russia because the conflict in Ukraine started.

The path led us to Valeria Baigascina, a 25-year-old, initially from the central Asian state of Kazakhstan however now residing in Belarus. An element-time mannequin, she posts commonly about her jet-set life-style on social media. In the previous two years she has visited Dubai, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

Her social media gave no indication she was additionally the director of a agency which had channelled tens of millions of {dollars}’ price of apparatus to sanctioned firms in Russia, as our search of customs paperwork revealed.

According to Belarusian registration particulars, Ms Baigascina was the founder and director of an organization known as Rama Group LLC. Set up in February 2023, it’s registered to an handle in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan – 2,300 miles (3,713 km) from her house in Belarus.

Both nations are former Soviet states with sturdy buying and selling hyperlinks to Russia. Belarus stays Moscow’s strongest ally in Europe.

Trade information reveals that since sanctions on Russia have been launched in February 2022, UK exports to Kyrgyzstan have elevated by greater than 300%. Experts suspect some items are literally destined for Moscow.

The customs paperwork obtained by the BBC recommend that Rama Group made two shipments to Moscow of high-end optics that can be utilized in missiles, tanks and plane.

The tools is listed on the customs type as being made by Beck Optronic Solutions in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. The firm manufactures high-precision lenses utilized in concentrating on and surveillance methods.

Though a few of its lenses are utilized in healthcare and engineering, Beck’s web site particulars intensive navy and defence functions.

The lenses and optical know-how bought by Beck Optronics are particularly listed as items that both can’t be legally exported to Russia, or that want permission from UK authorities earlier than any sale can happen.

The BBC has recognized, via customs paperwork, a complete of six shipments of merchandise stated to have been made by Beck with a complete worth of $2.1m (£1.6m) and transferred to Moscow via Rama and one other middleman firm, Shisan LLC.

In December 2023 and January 2024, Rama Group made its two shipments to Moscow itemizing them as “rotating part of camera”. These shipments went to Sol Group, an organization based mostly in Smolensk, 200 miles (320km) south-west of Moscow, which has been sanctioned by the US.

It will not be clear what worldwide route the products took – the paperwork point out among the shipments may very well have originated in Thailand.

Shisan LLC, one other Kyrgyz firm, was chargeable for 4 additional shipments of Beck Optronics’ merchandise price $1.5m (£1.1m).

Two of these shipments concerned “short-wave infrared camera lens” and went to the Ural Optical & Mechanical Plant, which makes bomb-aiming tools and can be sanctioned due to its hyperlinks to the Russian navy.

Rama Group and Shisan share the identical handle in Bishkek – a contemporary five-storey block in a affluent a part of the town. However, once we visited we have been instructed Valeria Baigascina was in a foreign country on a enterprise journey.

We discovered her quantity via her social media posts and put our allegations to her.

Ms Baigascina stated she was the founding father of the corporate however had bought it in May. She denied the allegations, saying that when she had owned it, “nothing like that was supplied”. She then hung up.

Later, by e mail, she instructed us the accusations have been “ridiculous” and based mostly on “false information”.

Our analysis reveals that in May this yr she bought Rama Group to her greatest pal, Angelina Zhurenko, who runs a lingerie enterprise in Kazakhstan.

Ms Zhurenko instructed us: “Trading activities are carried out exclusively within the framework of the current legislation of Kyrgyzstan. The company does not violate any prohibitions. Any other information is false.”

The director of the opposite middleman firm, Shisan, is listed as Evgeniy Anatolyevich Matveev. We put our allegations to him by e mail.

He instructed us that our data was “false” and that he ran “a business supplying exclusively civilian goods manufactured in Asian countries”.

He continued: “This does not contradict the laws of the state in which I work, and has nothing to do with US sanctions, because it is impossible to prohibit free trade in Asian goods available for sale and delivery.”

There’s no proof that Beck Optronics knew about these shipments or that the ultimate vacation spot of the lenses was Russia.

The firm instructed us it had nothing to do with the shipments: “Beck has not shipped anything contrary to UK export controls or any sanctions applying in the UK. It has had no dealings with any party or company in Russia, Kyrgyzstan or Thailand, was not aware that any shipments might ultimately be destined for any of these destinations and has not shipped anything to these destinations.”

It believes among the tools listed wasn’t even made by the corporate and that customs paperwork might have been falsified.

But these alleged exports are a part of a a lot greater image involving shipments from a variety of sources.

Analysis of customs paperwork by the Washington-based safety assume tank C4ADS recommend that Shisan accomplished 373 shipments through Kyrgyzstan to Russia between July and December 2023.

Of these, 288 contained items that fall below customs codes for “high-priority battlefield items”.

Over the identical six-month interval, Rama Group accomplished a complete of 1,756 shipments to Russia. Of these, 1,355 have been for objects on the “high-priority battlefield items” checklist.

Its most up-to-date shipments, together with electronics by US and UK firms, went to a Russian firm named Titan-Mikro, which has been topic to US sanctions since May 2023 for working inside Russia’s navy sector.

“When they sell this technology to a client who is potentially a Russian end-user, they fully should understand that this is to kill people,” says Olena Tregub from NAKO, Ukraine’s unbiased anti-corruption organisation.

She warns that the holes within the sanctions regime are costing lives.

“Without those technologies, those weapons would not fly. The brain of those ballistic missiles, the brain of those kamikaze drones, are made of Western technology,” she says.

International authorities are conscious of Kyrgyzstan’s position in sanctions evasion.

In April, UK’s overseas secretary on the time, David Cameron, travelled to Bishkek and urged the Kyrgyz authorities to do extra to tighten their sanctions’ compliance.

The Kyrgyz president expressed confidence that Lord Cameron’s official go to to his nation would “give new impetus to multifaceted co-operation between Kyrgyzstan and the UK”.

David O’Sullivan, the EU’s Special Envoy for the Implementation of Sanctions instructed us that efforts proceed to close down “illicit procurement networks”, and that “companies are required to undertake due diligence checks to understand who is the final end-user and where ‘battlefield items’ end up ultimately”.