Russian-owned German company Glotech imported Nokia and Ericsson telecommunications equipment worth millions of euros into Russia in circumvention of sanctions
Glotech GmbH, a company registered in Düsseldorf and controlled by people originally from Russia, imported dozens of tonnes of various types of equipment, including high-tech equipment, into Russia during 2023 and 2024 in circumvention of European Union sanctions. According to customs declarations, the total value of goods imported by Glotech during this period is estimated at almost €42 million, while companies connected with this supplier include entities linked to sanctioned Russian oligarchs specializing in supplying major state corporations and security agencies.
After Russian troops invaded Ukraine at the end of February 2022, many global corporations announced their withdrawal from the Russian market. These decisions were driven not only by moral considerations: sanctions rapidly imposed by the European Union and the United States, including, for example, a ban on supplying high-tech equipment to Russia, made it impossible for many foreign companies to conduct business in the country.
In early April, only a month and a half after the start of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, the Swedish company Ericsson announced the suspension of its activities, and the following day the Finnish company Nokia followed suit . At the same time, they announced a complete halt to deliveries of their products, which had been "frozen" back in February, and in August they announced the final wind-down of their operations in the Russian market.
The decisions taken by the companies themselves, as well as by European regulators, came as a shock to the Russian telecommunications industry. Together, Ericsson and Nokia controlled half of this market in Russia, while the remainder was divided among Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE and smaller suppliers. At the same time, the share of European suppliers among Russia’s key players, the so-called "Big Four" operators - MTS, Beeline, MegaFon and Tele2 - was dominant, especially in major cities, above all in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The supply ban covered not only Ericsson and Nokia equipment, but also the software on which the equipment ran and which required constant updates and support from the manufacturers. All of this hit the Russian telecommunications industry hard: the deployment and development of fifthgeneration networks (5G) was postponed until the end of the 2020s, while the cost of equipment for the industry rose by an average of 50% due to changes in supply chains, the introduction of "greymarket schemes" and the growing number of intermediaries helping to import equipment in circumvention of the sanctions imposed on Russia.
But this channel is also gradually being closed. In spring 2026, the European Union imposed a complete ban on supplies of telecommunications equipment to Kyrgyzstan, a country that is part of the same customs union as the Russian Federation and which European regulators accused of reexporting these products to Russia.
Direct supplies from Germany by Glotech GmbH
Nevertheless, despite the ban on supplies, high-tech equipment still found its way into Russia. And these were not always sophisticated schemes intended to confuse European regulators and cover their tracks. Complicated bureaucratic procedures within EU bodies responsible for monitoring customs operations, underfunding and a shortage of specialists created opportunities for relatively small suppliers to remain unnoticed by sanctions-enforcement authorities. This problem has been acknowledged in interviews by the EU International Special Envoy for the Implementation of Sanctions, David O’Sullivan, who says that monitoring groups primarily pay attention to anomalous supply patterns or large consignments, while they simply do not have the resources to track every shipment.
"If you go to Kyiv, to the Institute of Forensic Expertise, once the equipment is dismantled, you can see where the components come from, and unfortunately they come mainly from Western countries, whether it is the United States, the EU, Switzerland or the United Kingdom. This is a disgrace for all of us," he told the British newspaper The Guardian.
Small companies have learned this lesson. They split large shipments into several parts, listing them in different customs declarations. In order to confuse the relevant government authorities in European countries, descriptions of goods are run through machine translation several times, making them difficult to detect through keyword searches; companies also use customs codes for spare parts rather than for the complete product, which likewise makes the monitoring process more difficult.
For example, the small German company Glotech GmbH, registered in Düsseldorf and specializing in logistics operations, has imported goods worth €41.7 million into Russia since 2022.
The company has virtually no public profile and is rarely mentioned in the media. One notable exception came in April 2026, when German businessman Wadim Rosenstein, founder of WR Group and a candidate for the FIDE presidency, announced a €250,000 partnership agreement with the company. Rosenstein himself has also featured in media investigations examining his business ties to Russia.
According to customs declaration databases such as ImportGenius, a significant share of this volume appears to consist of shipments by Glotech GmbH of sanctioned equipment manufactured by Ericsson and Nokia. At the same time, a significant part of these products was imported into Russia from Germany through Poland and Lithuania after sanctions and the ban on such supplies had already been imposed. Thus:
- On September 22, 2024, Glotech GmbH imported Ericsson telecommunications equipment worth €1.14 million through Poland into Russia’s Kaliningrad Region. The shipment included Ericsson RBS 6601 base stations, Ericsson Radio 8808 and Ericsson Radio 2242 radio modules, SFP/SFP+ optical transceivers, fiber-optic cable, transport-interface expansion boards, DC power cables and monitoring modules. The cargo weighed 7.3 tonnes. This amount of equipment would be enough to fully equip between 150 and 200 base stations.
- On June 25, 2024, the company imported 100 Ericsson RBS 6601 base stations into Russia with a total value of €740,000. The equipment weighed 4.5 tonnes. According to the invoice, the equipment was manufactured at the Nanjing Ericsson Panda Communications Company Ltd. plant in China. On the same day, Glotech GmbH declared a shipment of 2,000 Ericsson parts under the vague description "parts of telecommunications equipment," manufactured by the Latvian company Edge Optical Solutions. The value of this cargo amounted to slightly more than €30,000.
- On June 23, 2024, Ericsson RBS 6601 base stations weighing 4.7 tonnes and worth €730,000 were imported, as well as electro-optical modules from an unknown manufacturer worth €36,000.
• On June 14, 2024, a large shipment to Russia was also split into several parts, while part of the description of the goods was deliberately distorted, for example "COAXIAL FIDELNY CABLE OF 5 INCHES," which in fact refers to feeder cable (coaxial feeder cable) used in the telecommunications industry. The value of this consignment of cable was €300,000 and its weight was almost 9 tonnes. - On April 6, 2024, the company imported Nokia communications modules (Flexi System Modul 084792A / 472181A) worth €150,000.
- On October 14, 2023, Glotech GmbH imported, under two declarations, Ericsson RBS 6602 base stations (€400,000) and RBS 6601 base stations (€330,000), with a total weight of 6 tonnes.
- On September 6, 2023, Ericsson Baseband 5216 digital-processing system modules, Nokia transceiver units (1800, 2600 and 800 MHz), and Huawei RRU radio modules were imported into Russia through Poland, with a total weight of 6.7 tonnes and a value of €130,000.
Overall, according to data from the customs declaration database, Glotech GmbH arranged 122 shipments to the Russian Federation between 2022 and 2025. Not all of them involved equipment for the telecommunications industry. A number of shipments indicate that the company also imported various types of measuring and laboratory equipment, as well as spare parts for machine tools that are subject to strict sanctions restrictions. At the same time, Glotech’s shipments also included completely harmless goods, such as several tonnes of cleaning brushes.
Almost all of the electronic equipment supplied by Glotech GmbH was intended for one Russian recipient, VTS LLC, registered in Moscow. Last year, the company reported revenue of RUB 1.9 billion (€20 million), while the company itself states on its website that it supplies and manufactures ventilation and air-conditioning systems. The ultimate controlling party of the Russian company is the private VTS Group from Luxembourg. It is unknown whether it continues to exercise operational control over the Russian business today.
Glotech GmbH: a German business with Russian roots
The logistics company Glotech was founded in Düsseldorf in May 2014 by Evgeny Superfin and Evgeny Shchukin. Both are originally from Russia.
Evgeny Shchukin is a native of St. Petersburg, where his close relatives still live. He is a German citizen and, apparently, no longer has Russian citizenship, although he previously did: he last received a Russian internal passport in July 2003. In any case, according to leaked air-travel databases, he entered Russia using his German passport.
Evgeny Superfin is also a native of Russia, from the town of Klintsy in the Bryansk Region, but unlike his partner Shchukin, he holds both a Russian internal passport and a Russian passport for international travel. However, Evgeny Superfin makes occasional visits to Russia and apparently resides permanently in Sweden.
The company is virtually absent from the public information space. One rare exception came in April 2026, when WR Chess founder Vadim Rosenstein announced a €250,000 partnership agreement with the company.
Another partner of Glotech GmbH is the Swedish company Superfin Invest AB, based in Malmö and founded by Vladimir Superfin, who is also originally from Russia and is probably a close relative of Evgeny Superfin.
Superfin Invest AB is a group of companies that, directly and through Vladimir and Evgeny Superfin, owns more than a dozen firms in Germany and Sweden. Many of them - VES Beteiligung GmbH, Workforce Rhein Ruhr GmbH, Aldega GmbH, Baupartner Ausbau GmbH and others - were established between March 2022 and 2025. But not all of them. For example, Supertransport Logistik Sweden AB dates back to 1989, while on its website the company lists only deliveries to Russia and Belarus as examples of successful projects.
Finally, another person connected with Glotech is Dmitry Matyushin, a native of Yekaterinburg, Russia. Together with Evgeny Shchukin, he manages Cabletrade GmbH, which is registered at the same address in Düsseldorf as Glotech GmbH.
Matyushin is a Russian businessman and manager linked to a large Russian corporation. He is the founder and head of three Russian companies in Yekaterinburg: PP NGM LLC, NGM LLC and TD KA LLC. These companies specialize in supplying industrial and electrical equipment.They are also regular participants in tenders for Russian state bodies, including pre-trial detention centers - prisons where detainees await trial or court rulings in their cases - in Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg), Yaroslavl and Bryansk regions, as well as the Academy of the Federal Protective Service, which guards high-ranking Russian officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Oryol Region.
In addition, Dmitry Matyushin heads Trading House Cable Alliance LLC, registered in St. Petersburg. The company’s official founders are businessmen from Yekaterinburg Vladimir Tikhonov and Yuri Cherepanov. Among the government customers for their products are Russian entities linked to the state corporation Rosatom, entities within the Federal Penitentiary Service, which controls Russian prisons and penal colonies, and the Federal Protective Service.
Matyushin also heads a company of the same name in Yekaterinburg. On its website, the company offers, for instance, so-called "combat engineer wires," which are used for military applications, among other purposes.
Apparently, all these companies fall within the orbit of the large Russian holding company Cable Alliance, which brings together several leading plants in the industry: Elektrokabel in Vladimir Region, Sibkabel in Tomsk and Uralkabel in Yekaterinburg. The companies in the group produce around 170,000 types of products for the energy sector, oil industry, communications and other areas.
In turn, the holding is under the full control of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC), associated with Russian oligarch Iskander Makhmudov. Because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Makhmudov is under sanctions imposed by the EU, the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries. In April 2025, the Russian edition of Forbes estimated his fortune at $9.7 billion.
After being placed under sanctions, Makhmudov transferred his stake in UMMC to Daniyar Kamilov, the son of the former foreign minister of Uzbekistan, the country where Makhmudov himself was born. At the same time, he retained non-operational control over the business. Together with his partner Andrey Bokarev, whose fortune was estimated at $4.9 billion by Forbes Russia, Makhmudov is a co-owner of Laboratory 2050, a new-generation industrial design center. Among the center’s projects are the design of the TEM23 shunting locomotive and the new Moskva 2024 metro train, as well as the interior design of the Ivolga 3.0 suburban train. This business also requires significant imports of foreign electrical equipment.
Despite the introduction of sectoral sanctions by the European Union, the United States and other countries, the Russian Federation continues to use various schemes to purchase critical components for the economy and defense industry. For example, in 2023, German components were found in Kinzhal and Iskander missiles, according to the Russian publication The Bell.
At the same time, a group of economists from the Munich Institute for Economic Research and the universities of Zurich and Würzburg note in their article that the use of an extensive network of intermediaries is only one of the channels through which sanctioned goods are supplied, although it is the most well-established in logistical terms. Other examples include vague descriptions of supplied goods in customs declarations and shipments declared as transit, with a third country listed as the nominal recipient of the cargo.
The final channel for importing goods into Russia discussed by the authors is well known - reexport through third countries. In the first months of the war, the volume of shipments through this channel was low - from $1.9 million to $13.2 million between April and August. But then it rose sharply. From September 2022 to January 2024, imports through this loophole ranged from $24 million to $58 million per month, equivalent to 13%–24% of the average monthly pre-war level. In 2024, EU authorities tightened controls on re-exports, and the volume of supplies fell to $7–17 million per month.
"Export bans are an effective instrument, but only if they are comprehensive, introduced immediately and backed by effective enforcement. As the EU continues to rely on sanctions as a key foreign-policy instrument, the development and implementation of export bans should receive no less attention than their public announcement," the economists conclude.
