Model, British technology and Russian war machine

High-tech equipment made by a UK company worth $2.1m (£1.6m) has been sold to Russian companies linked to the military, tax documents seen by BBC News suggest.

The documents show that the British-made camera lenses were sent by a company registered in Kyrgyzstan, apparently owned by the swimwear model.

The UK manufacturer, Beck Optronic Solutions, which has worked on British Challenger 2 tanks and F35 fighter jets, told us it did not violate sanctions, had no dealings with Russia or Kyrgyzstan, and was not aware of the shipment.

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

The trail led us to Valeria Baigascina, 25 years old, originally from the central Asian region of Kazakhstan but now living in Belarus. A part-time model, she regularly writes about her jet-set life on social media. In the last two years he visited Dubai, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

His social media did not reveal that he was also a director of a company that shipped millions of dollars worth of equipment to authorized companies in Russia, as our investigation of tax documents revealed.

According to Belarusian registration information, Ms. Baigascina was the founder and director of a company called Rama Group LLC. It was founded in February 2023, registered at an address in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan – 2,300 kilometers (3,713 km) from his home in Belarus.

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

Trade data shows that since the introduction of sanctions on Russia in February 2022, UK exports to Kyrgyzstan have increased by more than 300%. Experts suspect that some of the goods are actually destined for Moscow.

Shipping documents obtained by the BBC suggest that the Rama Group sent two shipments to Moscow of high-light equipment that can be used on missiles, tanks and aircraft.

The devices are listed on the tax form as being made by Beck Optronic Solutions in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. The company manufactures high-precision lenses used in targeting and surveillance applications.

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

The lenses and optical technology sold by Beck Optronics are listed as goods that may not be legally exportable to Russia, or that require approval from the UK authorities before any sale can take place.

The BBC has identified, through asset documents, a total of six products allegedly made by Beck with a total value of $2.1m (£1.6m) and transferred to Moscow through Rama and another intermediary company, Shisan LLC.

In December 2023 and January 2024, the Rama Group sent two of its products to Moscow and listed them as “rotating camera parts”. The shipment was sent to Sol Group, a company based in Smolensk, 200 kilometers (320km) southwest of Moscow, which was sanctioned by the US.

It is not clear which international route the goods took – documents show some shipments may have come from Thailand.

Shisan LLC, another Kyrgyz company, was responsible for the shipment of Beck Optronics products worth $1.5m (£1.1m).

Two of the shipments involved a “short-wave infrared camera” and went to the Ural Optical & Mechanical Plant, which makes bomb-aiming equipment and is also licensed because of its ties to the Russian military.

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

We found his number on social media and put our suspicions on him.

Ms. Baigascina said she is the founder of the company but sold it in May. He denied these accusations, saying that when he was in charge, “there is nothing like that”. Then he hung up.

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

Our research shows that in May this year he sold the Rama Group to his best friend, Angelina Zhurenko, who owns an underwear business in Kazakhstan.

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

The director of another intermediary company, Shisan, listed Evgeniy Anatolyevich Matveev. We submitted our suspicions to him via email.

He told us that our information was “false” and that he ran “a business that specializes in public goods produced in Asian countries”.

He continued: “This is not against the laws of the country I work in, and it has nothing to do with the American sanctions, because it is not possible to prevent the free trade of Asian goods available for sale and delivery.”

There is no evidence that Beck Optronics knew about this shipment or that the destination for the lenses was Russia.

The company told us it had nothing to do with the shipment: “Beck has not shipped anything that contravenes UK export controls or sanctions in force in the UK. It did not work with any organization or company in Russia, Kyrgyzstan or Thailand, it was not aware of any possible shipment to any of these places and it had not sent anything to these places.”

It believes that some of the devices listed were not even manufactured by the company and that the tax documents may have been falsified.

But these alleged exports are part of a much bigger picture involving exports from many sources.

An analysis of cargo documents released by Washington-based security agency C4ADS suggests that Shisan completed 373 shipments through Kyrgyzstan to Russia between July and December 2023.

Of these, 288 contained goods falling under the tax codes of “highly important battlefield items”.

During the same six-month period, Rama Group completed a total of 1,756 shipments to Russia. Of these, 1,355 were items on the “most important battlefield items” list.

Its latest shipment, including electronics for US and UK companies, went to a Russian company called Titan-Mikro, which has been under US sanctions since May 2023 for working within the Russian military sector.

“When they sell this technology to a potential client in Russia, they should fully understand that this is murder,” said Olena Tregub of NAKO, an independent Ukrainian anti-corruption organization.

He warns that the loopholes of the sanctions regime are eating people’s lives.

“Without that technology, those weapons would not fly. The brains of those ballistic missiles, the brains of those kamikaze drones, are made with Western technology,” he said.

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

In April, the UK foreign secretary at the time, David Cameron, went to Bishkek and urged the Kyrgyz authorities to do more to strengthen compliance with the sanctions.

The Kyrgyz president expressed confidence that Lord Cameron’s official visit to his country “will give new impetus to the multifaceted cooperation between Kyrgyzstan and the UK”.

David O’Sullivan, the EU’s Special Envoy for Sanctions, told us that efforts are ongoing to close down “illegal procurement networks”, and that “companies need to do a thorough check to understand who the end user is and where. the ‘battlefield stuff’ eventually ends”.