Swedish company stopped at customs – tried to export goods to a blacklisted Russian company

The Swedish company Nordic water tried in May this year to export industrial equipment to the Russian company Gazprom Neft. 

It was about surface sludge scrapers – cleaning equipment used in industry. The shipment was subject to an export ban by customs.

A few days later, sanctions would come into effect which had made the export prohibited – but Nordic water tried to send the goods before the sanctions came into force. However, that was not the case, as customs detained the goods until the sanctions came into force.

– The sanctions did not apply when we intended to ship the delivery. But the customs review dragged on and the sanctions came into effect before we could get the green light, says Domenico Truncellito, communications manager at Nordic water’s parent company Sulzer, to Echo.

Links to Putin

Sulzer is part-owned by the oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who has been put under sanctions by several countries due to his ties to Putin.

Both companies thus have connections to the Russian government – ​​Nordic water through the major owner Vekselberg and Gazprom Neft which is owned by the Russian state. However, Salzer denies to Ekot that Vekselberg had anything to do with the transport.

SVT Nyheter has contacted Nordic water, which does not want to answer questions about exports to Russia.

The defense did business with Sulzer companies

SVT Nyheter has previously reviewed Viktor Vekselberg’s influence in Sweden through, among other things, the Swiss Sulzer Group. Then it emerged, among other things, that the Swedish authorities made million dollar deals with companies where Vekselberg is the largest owner. One example is the Swedish Armed Forces, which had bought spare parts for submarines from one of these companies.