Lithuania's Run Engineering supplied equipment to Crimean power plant builders (media)

  • 2021-07-20
  • BNS/TBT Staff

VILNIUS –  Water filtration equipment assembled in Lithuania appears to have ended up at power plants stations in the Russia-annexed peninsula of Crimea, according to information gathered by the LRT Investigation Team and the Scanner anti-corruption project.  

Run Engineering, a company based in the Kaunas free economic area, was denied an export license for dual-use goods in late 2018, but that did not prevent it from exporting its products to Voronezh Akva, a Russian company that had been building the Tavricheskaya and Balaklava power plants in Crimea, the Lrt.lt has reported. 

Dual-use goods are items that can be used both for civilian and military applications. 

Voronezh Akva says that its design office is located in the Kaunas-based factory.  

Just days before it was denied the license, Run Engineering exported membranes made by Germany's Inge GmbH, owned by the US manufacturer DuPont, to Russia. The membranes are subject to a special EU regime on suspicion that they may be used in Crimea.

Run Engineering, previously known as Runtech, operates on a free economic area and, therefore, enjoys tax incentives. 

The Lithuanian company designs and assembles equipment from European-made parts. Povilas Medeksa, its CEO, admits that Kaunas was chosen due to its convenient geographical location for export to Russia.