How Norway Fed Russia’s War Machine Despite EU Sanctions

The Kremlin’s war on Ukraine has dented the vehicle stocks of the Russian military, which has increasingly relied on civilian trucks since its full-scale invasion three years ago this month — including for the transport of equipment and personnel.

U.S. and EU sanctions imposed not long after the February 2022 invasion aimed to choke off the supply of Western automotive parts that could help keep Russian President Vladimir Putin's military humming.

But a leading Norwegian automotive supplier has exported millions of dollars in truck parts that ended up feeding Russia's war machine via a Turkish intermediary, which resold them in circumvention of EU sanctions, an investigation by Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, and Norwegian public broadcaster NRK has found.

Kongsberg Automotive, based in Kongsberg in southern Norway, is a major supplier of parts to leading car brands like Volvo, Ford, Scania, and Jaguar Land Rover. It says it halted all direct exports to Russia in 2022 on its own initiative, calling sales to an "aggressor" state "immoral and reprehensible."

But leaked Russian customs records obtained by Schemes show that at least 126 shipments of Kongsberg Automotive parts were made to Russia from July 2022 to April 2024 by Hidirusta Otomotiv, one of the Norwegian company's customers in Turkey, which has not joined the Western sanctions coalition targeting Moscow.

The total listed value of these shipments was around $2.8 million, the leaked records show.

The roundabout route of the Norwegian company's vehicle parts highlights the difficulties Western governments have faced in using sanctions to stem the flow of equipment and electronics critical to the Russian military.

Prior to Russia's February 2022 invasion, Istanbul-based Hidirusta Otomotiv had no recorded shipments to Russia, according to records from the commercial customs-data aggregator ImportGenius. That changed seemingly overnight: By 2023, Russia had become the Turkish firm's largest market — and remains so today, ImportGenius records show.

Most of Hidirusta Otomotiv's shipments to Russia consisted of Kongsberg Automotive parts it bought from other resellers, while it imported the rest directly from the Norwegian company.

Hidirusta Otomotiv did not respond to a request for comment. Kongsberg Automotive called the resale of its parts into Russia "unacceptable and contrary to our values."

Norwegian Parts, Russian War Machine

While most Hidirusta Otomotiv shipments of Kongsberg Automotive parts were sent to Russian companies involved in truck repairs or transportation services, two — A.P.R. and Gruzavtozapchast-36 — have documented commercial ties to Russian defense firms.

A.P.R. supplied car parts to Orenburgagrosnabtekhservis, a partner of one of Russia's oldest and largest machine-building and metallurgical enterprises, Kirovsky Zavod, which has been under U.S. sanctions since 2023.

One of Kirovsky Zavod's subsidiaries, St. Petersburg-based Universalmash, provides parts for Russian military hardware the Kremlin has deployed in Ukraine.

Gruzavtozapchast-36, meanwhile, has ties to Baltic Leasing, a Russian company that last year supplied bulldozers to one of Russia's largest military training facilities, which has been under Ukrainian sanctions since 2023.

Neither A.P.R. nor Gruzavtozapchast-36 responded to requests for comment in time for publication.

Launching Attack Drones

Civilian vans and trucks have become increasingly vital to Russia’s war effort due to the toll taken on its military vehicles during the all-out invasion, according to Aage Borchgrevink, a senior adviser at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and a sanctions project coordinator.

"The war in Ukraine is very much about logistics. The entire Russian economy is geared toward producing the goods and services that will make this war possible. One of the most important things here are trucks and car parts," Borchgrevink said.

Moreover, civilian trucks can be used not only for transportation but also for launching attack drones like Iranian-made Shahed-136, which Russia actively uses in its strikes on Ukraine. In March 2022, the Iranian military-focused outlet IMA Media published a video detailing how this works.

"To keep the wheels turning — literally — Russia needed an entirely new fleet of trucks, which then required spare parts," Borchgrevink said.

Research by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and the Norwegian risk-analysis firm Corisk shows that Russia's truck imports surged in the winter of 2023. Since then, Moscow has increased its truck imports tenfold, according to a Corisk report, a move aimed at sustaining battlefield logistics despite severe Western sanctions.

Corisk researcher Erlend Bollman Bjortvedt said Russia increasingly relies on civilian vehicles to transport "everything from food to ammunition and grenades to the front lines."

Russian media reports echoed this trend, urging citizens to donate civilian vehicles to the war effort, citing a severe shortage caused by Ukraine's extensive use of drones.

"Just one small part can cause a truck to malfunction. So when you’re a Western company and you produce perhaps small parts that look innocent, a rubber ring for a few dollars or a ball bearing, it can be that small part that actually makes a defective truck start working again," Bjortvedt said.

Negligence Or Sanctions Evasion?

Confronted with these findings, Kongsberg Automotive distanced itself from the transactions, stating that it ceased direct sales to Russia in 2022.

In a written response, the Norwegian company said: "We believe that it is unacceptable and sad if our products end up in places where sanctions apply. The alleged resale by our customers is unacceptable and contrary to our values."

Ukraine Invasion: News & Analysis

Kongsberg Automotive, however, argued that tracking products after sale is difficult.

"Once we sell our goods, we lose ownership and control over the supply chain if they are resold multiple times, as seems to be the case here," the company said.

Kongsberg also expressed shock that Hidirusta Otomotiv had resold such a high volume of its parts to Russia, saying it failed to properly vet its Turkish customer and claimed it did not know Hidirusta's largest export market is Russia.

"We could have had better routines in place during the onboarding process," Kongsberg said.

Following Schemes and NRK's inquiries, the Norwegian manufacturer said it had terminated the relationship with Hidirusta Otomotiv and instructed all its customers to stop dealing with the Turkish firm. Moreover, the company said it now requires aftermarket customers to sign contractual commitments to uphold sanctions.

Legal experts say Kongsberg Automotive could face consequences if authorities determine it failed to conduct proper due diligence.

The obligation to check sanctions compliance falls on the authorities of the respective EU member states. In Norway, it is the Police Security Service (PST).

PST deputy head Inga Bejer Engh said a company can be punished — including criminally — if it fails to do enough to learn that its customer is violating sanctions.

Engh said she is unfamiliar with the Kongsberg Automotive case and that it would depend on whether the necessary degree of culpability has been demonstrated.

"To decide what constitutes prudent conduct, you have to ask yourself how an ordinarily reasonable and conscientious person would have acted in the same situation. To be punished for negligent breach of the sanctions rules, the company must therefore have acted differently from what can be expected of an ordinarily reasonable and conscientious company," Stian Oby Johansen, an associate professor at the University of Oslo's Department of Public Law, said.

Experts say Turkey is widely recognized as a sanctions loophole, meaning companies exporting goods there should exercise heightened scrutiny over potential resales to Russia.

Borchgrevink of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights said it was "disheartening" that Kongsberg Automotive appeared to "put in significantly less effort to track their goods and prevent these situations from occurring."

After reviewing the findings of the Schemes and NRK, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy’s sanctions policy commissioner, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, said the case "casts a shadow over the entire sanctions policy and its effectiveness in the EU."

"Spare parts for trucks in particular are what help Russia to be strong on the battlefield. That’s why this is a problem," Vlasiuk said.

Oleh Symoroz, a 28-year-old veteran soldier who became an anti-corruption activist after a severe battlefield injury, said he wonders if the EU and its member states do enough to enforce sanctions.

"Western countries, including Norway, can make sanctions effective. And if they had used that power, these sales to Russia would not have happened," he said.