Model, British tech and Russian war machine

Customs documents seen by BBC News show that high-tech equipment made by a UK firm has been sold to companies linked to Russia’s military.

Documents show the British-made camera lenses were sent by a company registered in Kyrgyzstan, apparently run by the swimwear model.

Backoptronic Solutions, a UK manufacturer that has worked on British Challenger 2 tanks and F35 fighter jets, told us it has not violated sanctions, has no dealings with Russia or Kyrgyzstan, and that Was unaware of the delivery.

Our investigation raises questions about the effectiveness of sanctions imposed on Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine.

The trail led us to 25-year-old Valeria Begaskina, originally from the Central Asian state of Kazakhstan but now living in Belarus. A part-time model, she regularly posts about her jet-set lifestyle on social media. In the last two years, she has visited Dubai, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

Her social media gave no indication that she was also a director of a firm that shipped millions of dollars worth of goods to sanctioned companies in Russia, as our search of customs documents showed.

According to Belarusian registration details, Ms. Baigascina was the founder and director of a company called Rama Group LLC. Founded in February 2023, it is registered to an address in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan – 2,300 miles (3,713 km) from its home in Belarus.

Both countries are former Soviet states with strong trade ties with Russia. Belarus is Moscow’s strongest ally in Europe.

UK exports to Kyrgyzstan have increased by more than 300% since sanctions were imposed on Russia in February 2022, trade figures show. Experts suspect that some of the goods are actually destined for Moscow.

Customs documents obtained by the BBC show that Rama Group made two shipments to Moscow of high-end optics that can be used in missiles, tanks and aircraft.

This equipment is listed on custom form as manufactured by Beck Optronic Solutions in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. The company manufactures high-precision lenses used in targeting and surveillance systems.

While some of its lenses are used in healthcare and engineering, Beck’s website details a wide range of military and defense applications.

Lenses and optical technology sold by Beck Optronics are specifically listed as goods that cannot either be legally exported to Russia, or are subject to UK authorities prior to any sale. Permission required.

The BBC has identified through customs documents that a total of six shipments of products manufactured by Beck with a total value of $2.1 million (£1.6 million) were transported to Moscow by Rama and another middleman, Shisan LLC. have been done.

In December 2023 and January 2024, Rama Group made its two shipments to Moscow and listed them as “camera rotating part”. The shipments went to Sol Group, a US-sanctioned company based in Smolensk, 200 miles (320 km) southwest of Moscow.

It’s unclear which international route the goods took — documents show some shipments actually originated in Thailand.

Shisan LLC, another Kyrgyz company, was responsible for four more shipments worth $1.5m (£1.1m) of Back Optronics products.

Two of the shipments contained a “short-wave infrared camera lens” and went to the Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant, which makes bomb-aiming equipment and is also sanctioned for its links to the Russian military.

Rama Group and Shisan share the same address in Bishkek – a modern five-storey block in a prosperous part of the city. However, when we visited, we were told that Valeria Begaskina was out of the country on a business trip.

We found his number through his social media posts and leveled our allegations against him.

Ms Begaskina said she was the founder of the company but had sold it in May. He denied the allegations, saying that when she owned it, “nothing like that was provided”. He then hung up the phone.

Later, via email, he told us the allegations were “ridiculous” and based on “misinformation.”

Our research shows that in May of this year, she sold Rama Group to her best friend, Angelina Zurenko, who runs a lingerie business in Kazakhstan.

Ms Zurenko told us: “Commercial activities are carried out exclusively within the framework of the current legislation of Kyrgyzstan. The company does not violate any restrictions. Any other information is false.”

Another intermediary company, Shesan, is listed as director Evgeny Anatolyevich Mataev. We put our allegations to him through email.

He told us that our information was “false” and that he was “running a business that exclusively supplies civilian items to Asian countries”.

He continued: “It does not conflict with the laws of the state in which I work, and it has nothing to do with the US embargo, because it is impossible to restrict the free trade of Asian goods available for sale and delivery. “

There is no evidence that Back Optronics was aware of these shipments or that the final destination of the lenses was Russia.

The company told us it had nothing to do with the shipment: “Beck has not shipped anything in breach of UK export controls or any restrictions in force in the UK. It does not ship to any party or in Russia, Kyrgyzstan or Thailand.” The company has no dealings, was not aware that any shipment might eventually be sent to any of these destinations and did not ship anything to these destinations.

He believes that some of the listed equipment was also not manufactured by the company and that there could be errors in the customs documents.

But these alleged exports are part of a larger picture that includes shipments from multiple sources.

An analysis of customs documents by Washington-based security think tank C4ADS shows that Shisan completed 373 shipments via Kyrgyzstan to Russia between July and December 2023.

Of these, 288 contain goods that fall under the customs code of “high priority war goods”.

In the same six-month period, Rama Group completed a total of 1,756 shipments to Russia. Of these, 1,355 were for items on the “high priority war items” list.

Its most recent shipments, including electronics from US and UK companies, went to a Russian company called Titan-Mikro, which has been under US sanctions since May 2023 for doing work in Russia’s military sector.

“When they sell this technology to a client who is potentially a Russian user, they must fully understand that it is to kill people,” said Olena of Ukraine’s independent anti-corruption organization NAKO. Trigab says.

She warns that loopholes in the sanctions system are costing lives.

“Without these technologies, those weapons won’t fly. The brains of these ballistic missiles, the brains of these kamikaze drones are made of Western technology,” she says.

International authorities are aware of Kyrgyzstan’s role in sanctions evasion.

In April, then-British Foreign Secretary David Cameron traveled to Bishkek and urged Kyrgyz authorities to take further steps to tighten their compliance with sanctions.

The Kyrgyz president expressed his belief that Lord Cameron’s official visit to his country “will give new impetus to multilateral cooperation between Kyrgyzstan and Great Britain”.

David O’Sullivan, the EU’s special envoy for sanctions enforcement, told us that efforts to close down “illegal procurement networks” are ongoing, and that “companies need to do due diligence to understand Who is the end user and where do the ‘battlefield items’ end up?