Despite Western sanctions, shipyards in Russia had access to crucial parts for a Russian design by the Dutch shipbuilder Damen. That shows research of News hour which was published on Friday.
Although Damen withdrew from Russia in March 2022, some of the parts for twenty modern Damen-designed fishing vessels under construction, such as ship propellers, appear to come from Damen itself. According to the German manufacturer of the screws, he supplied them “exclusively via Damen”.
Damen says she does not know how the products ended up in Russia. The company says it has no longer sent shipments to Russia after the sanctions came into effect and “believes it has acted fully in line with the sanctions.”
However, according to Damen, “a number of parts for fishing vessels have been sold to several foreign companies in 2023.” The company does not provide details about this, but according to Damen, “penalty clauses” were included to prevent the parts from going to Russia. The German ship propeller builder, Schottel, says in response that it had delivered “propulsion units for this type of ship” to Damen in 2023, but that Damen gave assurances that these “would not be supplied directly or indirectly to Russia or Russian customers”.
According to Damen, shipments in that year were “pre-checked by Dutch customs.” However, Nieuwsuur reports that the customs sanctions team has also investigated the case separately and suspects that criminal “export operations of parts for the construction of fishing vessels” have taken place.
In total, hundreds of parts that were subject to sanctions after the major Russian invasion of Ukraine ended up in Russia. This happened via transport companies in Turkey and Hong Kong that took over Damen’s role as shipper as soon as the sanctions came into effect. According to Nieuwsuur, both companies are associated with the new construction and operation of the fishing vessels from the Damen stable.
Crab catchers
As of 2020, it was used in four Russian shipyards construction started of a total of twenty ships. This is the Damen model 5712, which was specially designed for Russian crab fishing in the roughest sea conditions. The 5712 has a length of 58 meters and is available in a variant with crabs, sold as king crab, are kept alive in tanks and one involving scratching can be processed on boardt.
The crab catchers are owned by various shipping companies in eastern Russia, which operate from Vladivostok on the Bering Sea between Russia and Alaska. In exchange for fishing quotas, which were auctioned by the government in 2019, the companies had to have new ships built.
Thus the Kapitan Alexandrov walked, the first of seven 5712s that was built at the Onezhsky Shipyard in Petrozavodsk (northwest Russia) to be launched in March 2023 and is now active in the Sea of Okhotsk. In modern shipbuilding, many ‘subsystems’ such as engines, electronics and deck cranes are supplied by separate parties. Damen customers in other countries can choose to build a ship independently with a license, but also with Damen support at their shipyard. It is not known which variant the four Russian ‘5712 yards’ chose.
Import data
Nieuwsuur bases its research on two databases with import data. “We see shipments with the same descriptions, the same types of goods and the same countries of origin,” says the director of one of the two companies that collects the import data, Sayari. “But now suddenly it comes from newly established companies in Turkey in China. And that only a few months after they stopped [door Damen] are shipped from the Netherlands.”
According to Damen, “operational ties” with subsidiary Damen Engineering in St Petersburg have been severed since 2022 and also stopped the delivery of new ships to Russia. Next to the crab catchers Damen also had contracts for other Russian orders, including five tugboats.
Last year Damen filed a lawsuit against the Dutch State to receive compensation for lost revenues from Russia as a result of the sanctions. According to Nieuwsuur, that lawsuit largely revolved around the twenty crab catchers. But on November 15th Damen unexpectedly dropped the claim against the statebecause it prefers “forward [wilde] to look”. The company had been aware of the Nieuwsuur investigation into possible sanction violations for months. The shipbuilder denies this to Nieuwsuur that the withdrawal of the case against the state is related to this. Lawyers previously ruled that case stood little chance.
Damen Shipyards, headquartered in Gorinchem, has 35 shipyards and 12,000 employees in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and South America. It builds a wide range of ships, including ships for the Royal Navy.