Top Belarusian businessman circumvents sanctions and sells goods to EU. But how?

Aliaksey Zhukau is one of the most successful businessmen in Belarus. Lukashenka once personally awarded him a contract.

Zhukau is the creator of the largest holding in Eastern Europe for producing rollers, gates and aluminium profiles under the name "Alutech".

Following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Zhukau made a strategic move by selling his entire business to the German Hörmann Group, a company known for its involvement in the supply of sanctioned goods to Europe. 

The "Biuro" investigators, together with German publications Paper Trail Media and Manager Magazin, and with the support of Russian publications Viorstka, CyberPartizan and OCCRP ID, reveal how Aliaksey Zhukau circumvented Western sanctions and sold his companies' products to the EU.

Euroradio has summarised this text.

According to Biuro, a week after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the European Union banned imports of steel panels, gates and doors from Belarus.

Soon, the ban on imports of metallurgical products from Russia also came into force, but steel panels, gates, and doors were not subject to sanctions. That is, some Alutech products could not be exported from Belarus to the EU, but Russia was not affected by the ban.

According to the "Biuro", from June to December 2022, the Russian company Alutech-Siberia supplied the Czech company Alutech Systems S.R.O. with steel panels, doors and gates produced by the Belarusian company Alutech Gate Systems.

These goods were not supposed to enter the EU, but a loophole in the sanctions legislation made it possible. The total statistical value of the delivered goods is over 5 million dollars.