Italian presses were victorious become a member of the Russian defense projects to launch large-scale production of large-caliber ammunition, cartridges used during the war in Ukraine, writing in the Italian investigative publication IRPI Media, the text of which is directed by Espreso.
"Ammunition— This is the basis of any system of lung formation. The supply of ammunition greatly influences the potential of an attack as a whole.” This is how the engineers of the Russian Tula Cartridge Plant, one of the largest producers of cartridges in the world, grown in the same industrial center 200 km from Moscow, explain their findings in 2020. This quotation is about the results of the pre-investigation project on the production in Russia of large-caliber ammunition for high-precision screw guns for the approval of the FSB, the military intelligence service, which is the decline of the Radyansky KDB.
“The development and acceptance of a new cartridge is the most complex and most important task, which must still be approached with special care,” — Go to the name, signed, among others, by the director of the Tula plant. The plant was destroyed for several months under the sanctions of the European Union, and remains “the main supplier of ammunition for Russian security forces.”
Briefly about the investigation
- In the period since 20 11 to 2017 r_k The Italian company Vasini Srl supplied the Russian ammunition plant near Tula, 200 km from Moscow, with equipment for the production of ammunition and spare parts worth up to 3.5 million euros.
- Documents obtained by IrpiMedia show that the production lines that came out of the Italian plant played an important role in the ongoing plan of the Russian Ministry of Defense for the production of heavy ammunition for special services.
- This means that the layout is directed by Vasini , were vikorstans for military purposes, although there is a lot of proof that the Italian company knew about their vikorstan. Vasini did not have power supply to IrpiMedia.
- Equipment for the production of military caliber ammunition required an export license. Such permissions in Italy are granted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which, however, did not allow journalists to ask.
The project began early [before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine] under the auspices of the Central Scientific Research Institute of Precision Engineering of the Russian Federation. “Today we are actively expanding the sniper armor system in new calibers that are not yet available in our country,” — Dmitro Semizorov, then general director of the institute, said in a radio interview in 2014. The project “is based on our enterprises, which include the creation of the Russian system of sniper rifles, which is not comparable to imported analogues.”
A key role in secure Russia's possession for the beginning of the large-scale production of large-caliber ammunition even before Vladimir Putin occupied Crimea was also played by several Italian companies. Today's cartridges, disassembled and tested at the factory, are used by the National Guard, special forces of the Russian special services, as well as the occupying forces in Ukraine.
Owned by Italy
Vasini Srl was a small company with fifteen workers and a distillery plant on the outskirts of the Italian town of Cremona, near Lombardy. Founded in 1960, she called herself a “light leader in the development of machines.” for the preparation of “military cartridges and sports ammunition”. The remaining available balance (2017) showed an income of 1.6 million euros. In 2020, the company added Simecon — a company with industrial automation, which will take over from the locality of Lecce, Apulia region, Domenico Todeschini, becoming the defense branch of the group. Today in the Simecon catalog you can find equipment under the Vasini brand — for sealing, sealing and packaging of ammunition.
Messages from the old Vasini website are sent to the Simecon website Long before the company moved to the warehouse of the Simecon group, Vasini had small business deals with Russia, helping to increase the potential of the region among manufacturers and ammunition without the need to be stored at the entrance Import.
Between 2011 and 2017, the Italian company made over 110 supplies of equipment for the production of ammunition and spare parts to the Tula Ammunition Plant. Please submit your data to the ImportGenius service, which is powered by the Italian version of IrpiMedia. The volume of goods produced by the Vasini company reached at least 3.5 million euros, and 30 deliveries were made after the annexation of Crimea by Russia, after which the European Rada imposed an embargo on supplies release.
At that time, the Italian company was part of the Vasini, Diana & Gualandi, the official of Renato Ballabio, from the Italian city of Brescia, Lombardy.
Documents obtained by IrpiMedia journalists, check that the information lines , which came out of the plant in the town of Cremona, played an important role among the Vikonans the plan of the Russian Ministry of Defense for the production of heavy ammunition for airborne units and special services. So the stinks were vicorized for military purposes, although there is no sign that the Vasini knew about the actual vicorization of their possession.
According to the words of the expert in Galuzia, export control has been established, until IrpiMedia has been brutalized, the possession, which may be used in the production of military-caliber ammunition, is not considered by the European Union as possession of a secondary purpose, and with to the right “weisk possessors”.
< p>This means that an export license is required to send such property to another country. In Italy, permission to export these materials is provided by the Department of Authorization of Materials for Acquisition (UAMA) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When asking journalists by e-mail for possible permission to export to Russia, which was denied by Vasini, UAMA was not granted. Any great authority of Vasini Renato Ballabio, and one of the least important authorities of the company Simecon, who were involved in this drive, did not respond to the inquiries of journalists.
Project “Accuracy”
In 2011, the Moscow plant “Promtekhnologiya” was born, which was sanctioned for serving the Russian army by producing the ORSIS T-5000 sniper rifle. This model of the company will be discontinued by the Ministry of Defense in order to replace the old Radyan sniper rifles, which are used by the Russian National Guard and the FSB, the internal service our safety.
For the introduction of other Russian high-precision screws, "Promtekhnologiya" It is impossible to replicate the armor-piercing power of advanced large-caliber rifles, such as those equipped with .308 Winchester and .338 Lapua cartridges.
Photo: Cartridges of caliber .308 of the Tula manufacturing plant
In the Russian sample, change the storability of the input import, the development of Russian alternatives to these calibers for the new ORSIS T-5000 screw gun has been entrusted, middle others, the Ulyanovsk Cartridge Plant, established in Volz , over 800 kilometers from Moscow, just before entering the Tula Group warehouse.
In this very context, Tula turned to the Italian manufacturer Vasini in order to close the line with the production of ammunition for calibers .308 Win and .338 Lapua. According to transport documents, the first car with Italian ownership for this production arrived in the spring of 2011.
Russian reports indicate that, after a number of years, in 2014, the production of both types of ammunition at the Ulyanovsk Cartridge Plant has already been “mastered.” And serial production is in full swing. The T-5000 sniper rifle shows good results during initial testing and shooting.
As of 2017, the plant in Tula and Ulyanovsk will be located in the homeland of the Rotenbergs, the main members of which, the oligarchs Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, have been under sanctions since 2014. The plant is infected with one of the leading manufacturers of military ammunition for the Russian armored forces. Investigated in 2023, Irpi Media, in collaboration with OCCRP and other partners, reconstructed the network of the company and professionals who allowed the Rotenbergs to circumvent sanctions.
With a technically successful project t, The Russian Ministry of Defense requires further thoroughness, first "a militarized version of the 2011 roku zrazk" can be transferred to the National Guard and the FSB.
As part of scientific research projects "Accuracy-7.62-P" And “Accuracy-8.6-P”, published in 2016, the Tula Cartridge Plant is rejecting the FSB's request to begin monitoring the mass production of ammunition for this new generation of Russian high-precision rifles.
At the same time, Tula is purchasing two more production lines from the Italian company Vasini Srl for .308 Win and .338 Lapua, a capsule machine and a machine for loading cartridges. Based on the internal research of Tula engineers, published in 2020, as part of the modernization of the military plant, Vasini presses are being tested for testing for serial production of new large scales Ibernich cartridges.
"More precisely, the production of cartridges, — mean fakhіvtsi, — will ensure high precision of the core.
The result of the latest project is successful, and it is expected that the ammunition “successfully passed state testing and was accepted for production by the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB, ed. ) and the Russian Guard”. The authors continue to recognize the importance of such an achievement: “For the first time in the history of modern Russia, such a sniper rifle has been developed that has nothing to compare with foreign analogues neither for accuracy nor for range. “Lby”, as the ORSIS T-5000 reaches 2,000 meters.
Photo: http ://vitalykuzmin.net/?q=node/484/Gvintivka ORSIS T-5000 .338 LM
In 2017, large-scale production for law enforcement agencies began. Likewise, in the hour of Russia’s puppet war in Donbass, T-5000 rifles are being victorious by Putin’s army, and Russian snipers confirm that they were victorious in long-distance combat.
National Guard of the Russian Federation and invasion
Vasini supplies will continue to play a key role in the Russian program for the creation of new high-precision screws. In 2017, the Italian company transferred to the Tula plant three more batches of equipment for packaging ammunition — equipped with caliber .308 Winchester and .338 Lapua.
It appears that the equipment is not lost at the civil plant in Tula, installed in the Ulyanovsk branch, which is one of the main deliveries no large-caliber ammunition for the Russian army.< /p>
In 2018, we are about to present new machines for the production of high-precision ammunition of two calibers with the participation of the former director of the Ulyanovsk Ammunition Plant, Oleksiya Dubonosov, and the governor of the region, Sergey Morozov. rank, cartridges will become part of the Russian production industry,” &mdash ; Director Dubonosov speaks, and Governor Morozov declares that “this investment amounts to perhaps a billion rubles (over 13 million euros at that time – ed.). Result — creation of unique technology.”
A visual assessment carried out by Irpi Media based on video recordings of the entry shows an escape from the installations that are sold on the Vasini website. I would like the documents to confirm that the possession was sent to Russia with “super-day” registration. brand Vasini, in the video, when new cars are presented in Ulyanovsk, you can add a plate with the “CE” sign, which means that the product is manufactured in the European Union, and the logo of the Italian company.
Ownership of Vasini/Website of the Ulyanovsk Cartridge Plant
Data from Russian purchases show that from 2017 to the present day, the Ulyanovsk plant has produced at least 223,000 rounds of caliber .338 Lapua and .308 Winchester for National Guard of Russia.
Created in 2016 by Putin himself as a military corps alongside the army, the National Guard is now playing an active role in the war in Ukraine. During the Russian attack on Kiev in 2022, their troops acted as the vanguard of the occupying forces, and also took part in the atrocities recorded in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.
At Kvitna 2 023 Roku Lieutenant Colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia confirmed that the The National Guard of Russia “to take part in the battles in Ukraine” against Ukrainian intelligence and saboteurs.
“The Russian Guard is recruiting volunteers for military service in new (sic!) regions of Russia,” — The Russian television station announced several months ago. The local Russian television and radio company Ugra News reported that the Russian Guard is already operating in the “privileged territories” And that snipers are paid a salary equivalent to approximately two thousand euros per month. (Of course, we are talking about the occupation of Ukrainian territories by the Russians, — ed.).
The role of sanctions
In addition to possessing equipment for the production of large-caliber ammunition, Vasini supplied the Tula Cartridge Plant with production lines for the production of pistol cartridges, zocrem, 9×19 mm “Parabelum” — caliber, which is most often used by law enforcement agencies in this world.
How to confirm the data on the purchases of the Russian government, this cartridges came from Tuly to various ministries, the Ministry of Defense, to the Slidchy Committee, the National Guard, the FSB, the Criminal Service, the military giant at the end rnu “Kalashnikov” and many “military products” that are hardened are controlled by intelligence.
This is based on the Russian accounting system, as reported by Irpi Media, Between 2015 and 2018, Tula paid Vasini a sum for its equipment , which in the current ruble equivalent was approximately 3.5 million euros.
Photo: Kremlin press service/Putin and Arkady Rotenberg
However, at that time, sanctions imposed by the United States had already begun to attack the authorities of the Tula plant. In notes to financial reports for 2018, the Russian company states that the United States has imposed sanctions “against Russia”, “blocking” “Seven Russian businessmen.” Among them — The current actual ruler of the Tula Cartridge Plant, oligarch-billionaire Igor Rotenberg, son of Arkady Rotenberg, who is very close to Russian President Volodymyr Putin.
Sanctions against Rotenberg prompted companies to withdraw more than 15 million euros from Texas-based equipment dealer Eurosports LLC. At that time, Rotenberg Shchels without raincoing the PID by sanctic єs, the payment of the Tulskiy factory for Vasini (an export of the still Buvs of sanitization, Iltai in the special UAMA) did not blame.
However, despite the sanctions, Russian factories easily found out about the production of ammunition — long before the start of a full-scale war in Ukraine — Strategies for continuing delivery through other channels. This was the case with Tula, about which audit documents were reviewed, as reported by Jihan Kuzkaya, a consultant with the consulting company KPMG, and reviewed by Irpi Media. Listed between the Belgian manufacturer of New Lachaussée technology and the Tula Ammunition Plant for Low-Volts, they boast that the Russian company can easily circumvent sanctions.
"[Tula Plant ] having reported to the additional zusils, to unify the boundary, — by writing a representative of New Lachaussée in Russia to the commercial director of the company in the year 2020. — They have a lot of companies all over the world (like Hong Kong)… So far they have managed to find an absolutely legal way for this business.”
The financial information of the Tula plant for 2016 confirms the payment of two million euros to the secret Hong Kong company Trisun Enterprises Limited, the reason for which is the “advance payment given for the acquisition of property” “Anna and technology.”
Electronic sheets seized by a hacker group Anonymous will be born in 2022 from the Lipetsk Mechanical Plant, which operates in the name of the armor giant “Kalashnikov”, — confirm the great dependence of the Russian military-industrial complex on the wrested European possession for the production of ammunition.
Before the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, only a few months were lost from the Kalashnikov concern. Lipetsk voted for a tender for the supply of a line for the production of ammunition of 7.62 and 12.8 mm caliber. We turned to the Italian company Invernizzi Presse, which is based in Lecco, as well as Simecon, the parent company of Vasini.
Photo: Sniper rifle ORSIS T-5000 (in the background), which is fighting against the Ukrainians against the neo-Nazi group “Rusich”
Lipetsk Mechanical Plant, going to write down price propositions addressed to Invernizzi Presse , may be our name expand the production of cartridges of calibers 9×19, 7.62×39 and .223R by 30 million units per river: “We ask you to give the Lipetsk Mechanical Plant a commercial proposal for the addition of an automated line “It is consistent with the cycle of cartridge generation.”
At the end of leaf fall in 2021, Invernizzi Presse confirmed that it was preparing its “best proposal,” and Lipetsk forwarded the electronic sheet to the Kalashnikov concern. A few days later, on January 1, 2021, the Russian company demonstrated impatience in another electronic letter: “We need to start soon before purchasing equipment.” Could you give an estimate for the hour required to prepare the proposition?In response, the Invernizzi Presse company stated that it could not satisfy the demand from Lipetsk, since it does not supply new production lines for the production of ammunition. However, the Italians decided to contact the Vasini company, because, according to Invernizzi Presse, they are working on all the necessary equipment to start the production line.
"It’s not small and, “Lipetsk Mechanical” It operates under the name of the Russian military company “Kalashnikov”. In these poor communications, such as we were little, they never knew about it. The journalists told us about this later. We no longer have a small number of daily business transactions with Russian companies in connection with the acceptance of punitive attacks against Russia,” — wrote Invernizzi Presse in response to journalists from Irpi Media.
It is unknown whether the Russian company was involved with Vasini, but a representative of the Lipetsk factory wrote that they would earn it. Simecon also did not confirm the request for this.
Prepared by: Nina Petrovich