«Ukrainska Pravda» journalists visited two factories in Belgium of the Russian company NLMK, owned by the second richest man in Russia, oligarch Vladimir Lisin, close to Putin. Despite NLMK's proven involvement in the making weapons that kill ukrainians, the factories in the suburbs of Brussels continue to operate peacefully. And the oligarch himself is still not under any European sanctions.
This is stated in the investigation of the publication's journalists.
According to data, NLMK supplies electrical steel to a number of Russian factories that produce cruise and ballistic missiles, drones and nuclear weapons, including the С300 and С400 missiles that often attack Ukrainian cities.
Meanwhile, factories NLMK in Belgium operate freely, and they purchase Russian raw materials for their work. Thus, according to Eurostat, the EU spent 660 million euros on the purchase of Russian-made slabs.
Earlier the Ukrainian President's Commissioner for Sanctions Policy Vladyslav Vlasyuk stated that in 2023 Russia exported metal products to the EU worth €3 billion. At the same time, the Russian NLMK, which supplies metallurgical slabs to the EU, is the monopoly producer in Russia of special electrical steel, which is critically important for the Russian defense industry.
Therefore, the transition sanction period for Russian steel production - slabs, pig iron and DRI - should be shortened to the end of this year, and not extended to 2028. The EU should also impose personal sanctions against Vladimir Lisin and the NLMK Group - because Lisin is a long-time associate of Putin and facilitates the functioning of the shadow fleet of Russia.