German media reveal that companies from our western neighbor’s country are participating in construction works in Mariupol occupied by Russians. ARD journalists received testimonies, photos and video materials indicating that one of the German companies constructed a residential building from its own materials. The work was carried out on behalf of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
Mariupol /STRINGER/AFP /East News
The Tagesshau website reports that Knauf still employs 4,000 people in Russia and achieves billions of dollars in profits there. A German construction company officially condemns the Russian invasion and says it is complying with European Union sanctions imposed on Moscow. The company’s founder, Nikolas Knauf, was honorary consul of Russia for over two decades, described the sanctions imposed on Russia in 2018 as “terrible”, and in an official statement to Tagesshau wrote that his company produces “exclusively for the Russian market”.
“The idea that having a subsidiary only in Russia is irrelevant in the context of sanctions is completely divorced from reality,” says Viktor Winkler, an expert on sanctions law, for the German website. He explains that even if construction materials are not directly covered by sanctions regulations, companies must exclude the existence of military connections with what they supply to Russia. It does not necessarily have to be about equipment or technologies directly related to the defense industry. “It is enough that the army and armed forces derive indirect benefits” from such supplies to be considered in violation of sanctions, explains the expert.
Meanwhile, the official representative of the Knauf company in Russia publicly announced that a residential building was built in Mariupol using materials provided by the German company.
However, Knauf is not an isolated case, emphasizes Tagesshau. Photo and video footage from many construction sites in Mariupol provides further evidence that German companies are making money on the reconstruction of the city devastated by the Russians. The photos show, among others: logo of the Münsterland company in North Rhine-Westphalia – WKB Systems GmbH.
The main shareholder of this company is the Russian oligarch Viktor Konstantinovich Budarin. Interestingly, Budarin was not covered by the sanctions imposed by Brussels. As Winkler, quoted by Tagesshau, says: the criteria for which oligarchs are subject to sanctions and which are not are not unified.
Mariupol was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Estimates of the number of residents killed in the siege are inaccurate. It is estimated that at least 8,000 Ukrainians lost their lives as a result of the bombing and shelling that lasted for months. The city was razed to the ground, and the last point of resistance was the Azovstal plant, where Ukrainian troops resisted the occupiers for a long time. Eventually, however, the Azov brigade, cut off from reinforcements, had to capitulate. The capture of Mariupol was the last major Russian achievement in the ongoing war.
Last year, the city was visited by Vladimir Putin himself, who declared: we will rebuild apartments, schools, hospitals, theaters and museums. No one thought that the reconstruction of the city ruined by Putin’s army would be carried out thanks to Western companies.
