A German tech company may have exported technology to Russia via Slovenia despite new European Union sanctions, according to a journalistic investigation by POLITICO.
According to the investigation, Kontron, which has offices across the EU, the UK, and the US, used its Slovenian subsidiary to export telecommunications technology worth more than €3.5 million to its Russian subsidiary at the end of 2023.
This happened despite several waves of EU sanctions, including the 11th sanctions package introduced in June 2023, which was intended to restrict the export of advanced technologies and dual-use goods to Russia.
The export documents reviewed by the publication show that 11 shipments were made from Kontron’s Slovenian subsidiary to Iskra Technologies’ Russian subsidiary between July and November 2023, after the June sanctions had already come into effect.
The exported products included dual-use goods, including the SI3000 system, which can monitor and intercept telecommunications traffic.
The company stated that these deliveries were made under valid permits issued by the Slovenian government and related to contracts already concluded. It also said it had stopped all new shipments after June 2023.
“After the introduction of the 11th package of sanctions, we stopped exporting new goods and only made deliveries under already approved export licenses in accordance with the current EU sanctions,” the company said.
According to the newspaper, Kontron had previously announced its withdrawal from Russia. In particular, it condemned the “tremendous human suffering” caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and said it would no longer invest in Russia.
However, Kontron still has a presence in the Russian market through its subsidiary Iskra Technologies, which was included in the EU sanctions list in December 2024. The year-end report states that Kontron “continues to control Iskra Technologies”: through its Slovenian subsidiary, it owns 48.4% of the shares.
At the request of journalists, Kontron did not specify who owns the remaining 51.6% of Iskra shares, except to say that it is a “Russian structure that is not affiliated with state-owned companies.”
The investigation also shows that since June 2023, Kontron’s Slovenian unit has made at least 49 deliveries of SI3000 technology and spare parts to Kazakhstan.
In August 2023, Iskra Technologies merged with RTSoft, a Russian company that Kontron referred to as its “sister company.” RTSoft had been licensed by the FSB to work with Russian classified information since 2016, although Kontron claims that the license was revoked in April 2022.
Slovenian documents show that as of the end of 2023, Kontron d.o.o. had a loan of EUR 3.546 million to Iskra Technologies, which is due in 2026-2027. In 2022, it also wrote off EUR 6.393 million of debt for a Russian company.
EU sanctions prohibit providing financial assistance or making funds available to sanctioned entities. Kontron said that these loans remain active but have been reviewed for compliance with the sanctions.
