Belarus has attempted to sell pellets to Europe in circumvention of sanctions

This investigation was produced in partnership with the Turkish publication *The Black Sea*, thanks to the ‘Workers’ Movement’ initiative, with the support of ‘Cyberpartisan’.

 

Making millions from woodworking waste? This is one example among the few successes of Belarusian industry over the last three decades. In just three years, the country has built a new industry from scratch to produce eco-friendly biofuel – pellets. But simply creating the industry is not enough; the product must also be sold. And Belarusian companies have excelled at this too, becoming one of the top five pellet-exporting countries in the highly competitive European Union market.

 

Pellets, or wood granules, are wood that has been shredded, compressed and dried; they are more efficient than firewood or coal for heating homes. Burning pellets requires specialised, relatively expensive boilers, but these costs are offset by convenience and savings in running costs. Various wood processing waste products can be used to produce this biofuel: sawdust, wood shavings, small tree branches and even rotten or old wood. In Belarus, which until 2022 earned 1.5–2 billion dollars a year from the export of forest products, there was more than enough raw material for the production of wood pellets.

 

The European Union is the world’s largest consumer of pellets, having recognised this fuel as an environmentally friendly and renewable source of energy. In Poland alone, around half a million households use them for heating. In 2022, the EU consumed nearly 23 million tonnes of wood pellets, whilst its own production amounted to just under 21 million tonnes. This two-million-tonne shortfall made the EU market the world’s largest single buyer of pellets. The price per tonne on this market fluctuates depending on the season, ranging from 200 to 450 euros and reaching as high as 750 euros during times of crisis.

 

Belarus decided to capitalise on both factors — its own well-developed timber processing industry and the large neighbouring market. In 2019, Alexander Lukashenko personally ordered the launch of a programme to build the first six pellet plants. A total of 81 million roubles, or nearly $40 million, was invested in them. Just two years later, Belarus ranked fourth among countries exporting pellets to the European Union.

 

By 2023, 64 pellet plants had been commissioned in Belarus. Their combined production capacity stood at 900,000 tonnes per year, equivalent to half of the European Union’s total imports from abroad. However, these dozens of enterprises never reached their maximum production capacity. In the first nine months of 2023, total pellet production in Belarus did not exceed 30,000 tonnes — 3 per cent of its potential capacity. This is less than the capacity of the Mozyr plant alone, which is capable of producing 36,000 tonnes of pellets per year, and 20 times less than Belarus exported to the European Union in 2021.

 

The Belarusian authorities’ own actions were the reason for the project’s failure. In response to political repression within the country following protests against the rigging of the 2020 election results and Belarus’s complicity in russia’s war against Ukraine, the European Union imposed sanctions on the timber industry. In March 2022, the international quality certificate for Belarusian pellets was revoked and a decision was taken to impose a complete ban on imports of Belarusian wood products, almost simultaneously.

 

Belarus and russia’s place on the European market has been taken by six countries: the USA, Canada, Brazil, Ukraine, Malaysia, Vietnam and Turkey. As of 2022, the first five were major pellet producers with annual capacities ranging from half a million to several million tonnes. But the last one stood out as an anomaly on this list. Before the embargo was imposed, Turkey produced around 200,000 tonnes and sold between 637 tonnes in 2015 and 22,000 tonnes of pellets to the EU in 2021. Following the ban on pellet supplies to the EU from russia and Belarus, shipments from Turkey increased 5.4-fold. Ruslan Suleimanov, an expert on the Middle East at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre, explained the possible reasons for this in a comment to the BRC:

 

“In 2022, Turkey became one of the key, if not the most important, countries for russia in terms of circumventing sanctions. ... Turkey became a hub for so-called ‘shadow imports’, and it was via Turkey that, at least in 2022, 2023 and partly in 2024, goods subject to sanctions were supplied. Furthermore, in Turkey … front companies were set up to facilitate interaction between russian and Turkish firms, in particular for settlements in US dollars. <...> Due to the close cooperation between Lukashenko’s regime and Putin’s regime, it is, of course, primarily big business – businesses linked in one way or another to the state, both in Belarus and in russia – that are circumventing sanctions in the same way, notably via Turkish territory.”

 

BRC investigators confirmed that attempts were indeed made to sell Belarusian pellets via Turkey in circumvention of sanctions.

 

The BRC analysed customs data for 2022–2025 and identified 81 shipments of Belarusian pellets to Turkey totalling $750,000. Fifteen Belarusian, 11 Turkish and one Polish company were involved in the transactions. Seven Turkish firms acted as both importers and exporters: they purchased pellets from Belarus and sold the same goods to the EU, which may indicate re-export.

 

The way the scheme worked can be seen in the example of the Belarusian companies ‘Azimut Optima’ LLC and ‘Kronotex-Bel’ LLC. Between 2022 and 2024, they supplied around 150,000 kg of wood pellets to the Turkish company LSK Makro Agac Sanayi Ve Ticaret Anonim Sirketi. During the same period, this company sold 900,000 kg of pellets to the European Union. According to data from international trade databases, some of these exports were of Belarusian and russian origin, and one of the European buyers of Belarusian products from the Turkish firm LSK Makro Agac Sanayi Ve Ticaret was the Polish company ANS Group Sp. z o.o. At the time of the deliveries, it was managed by the Belarusian Andrei Kunts. In 2024, he acquired a stake in the company, and his wife, Viktoria, joined the management team. The family also owns the Polish firm Kunctrade Sp. z o.o., which specialises in the wholesale timber trade.

 

“If a Polish company knowingly purchases Belarusian wood products, even via Turkey, such indirect procurement or importation falls under sanctions, and transhipment via the aforementioned countries is legally irrelevant,” said Martin Menkes, Doctor of Law and professor at the Warsaw School of Economics, assessing the legal aspect of this cooperation.

 

In response to our enquiry, ANS Group emphasised that it could not confirm the BRC’s conclusions regarding the supply of pellets and their origin. The company noted that it operates in accordance with applicable laws, in particular the rules concerning EU sanctions, and that it verifies its counterparties and trade documentation.

 

Domestic pellets were supplied to Turkey by both private and state-owned Belarusian firms and forestry enterprises. The best-known among them are: OJSC ‘Amkodor’ — the holding company’s managing entity, UP ‘Bellesexport’ and LLC ‘Eurotorg’, owner of the ‘Euroopt’ brand. Two lesser-known firms on our list have notable owners: one of the beneficiaries of ProfitSystem LLC is Sergei Mezentsev — a namesake of Alexander Lukashenko’s former security service employee —
 whilst a beneficiary of SVUDS Export LLC is the russian billionaire Igor Rybakov, who is subject to sanctions imposed by Poland and Ukraine.

 

Eurotorg Holding PLC, which owns “Eurotorg”, has described the information regarding its subsidiary’s deliveries to the Turkish firm Pelkur Heat Industry And Trade Ltd. Co, as outlined in our enquiry, as incorrect. The company stated that “Eurotorg” has never had any commercial or other relations with the Turkish company Pelkur Heat Industry And Trade, and that commercial operations involving pellets do not fit the profile of “Eurotorg”, which operates a retail chain selling food and everyday consumer goods. The 14 other Belarusian firms mentioned in the investigation did not respond to the BRC’s enquiry.

 

Of the seven Turkish firms that imported pellets from Belarus and exported similar goods to the EU, only Etraa International Turizm Ticaret Limited Sirketi responded. The company confirmed that it had purchased pellets from Belarus but had sold the entire volume on the domestic market. In its reply, it noted that Turkey had not imposed sanctions on products from the Belarusian timber industry, so imports from Belarus were carried out in accordance with the law.

 

The only European company on our list that is likely to have supplied Belarusian pellets to Turkey is the Polish firm Supinvest Sp. z o.o. It was founded on 9 May 2022 — one month before the forestry embargo came into force. Two unrelated trading platforms, which the BRC checked, contain evidence that six months after its registration, the company began exporting Belarusian pellets. In October–November 2022, Supinvest shipped 10 consignments of wood pellets from Belarus to Turkey, with a total value of $150,000. These were purchased by the Turkish firm Pelkur Heat Industry And Trade, which, according to database information, also received Belarusian pellets from the company ‘Eurotorg’.

 

‘The fact that the wood [products] did not reach the European Union is, in fact, irrelevant. Whenever an operator from the European Union, in this case a Polish [firm], either transports or facilitates the transport of Belarusian timber from Belarus to Turkey, this, once again, most likely violates EU sanctions,” noted Martin Menkes, Doctor of Law and professor at the Warsaw School of Economics.

 

Supinvest is owned by Anton Tsvetinsky, a Moldovan national, and Natalia Tsvetinska, a Polish national. Tsvetinska is a Doctor of Law, an associate professor at the University of Poznań, and a specialist in international law and human rights. She regularly participates in prestigious international academic forums, including events at the Universities of Oxford and Texas. A dozen of her publications can be found online in prestigious journals, including articles on the legal consequences of the annexation of Crimea.

 

In response to our enquiry regarding the legality of the shipments, Nataliia Tsvetinska stated that, to her knowledge, they did not involve wood pellets. She also reported that, according to the information at her disposal, Supinvest complies with trade restrictions. For more precise information, she asked us to contact the company directly. The company replied that, during the period in question, it had supplied goods to the Turkish company Pelkur Heat Industry And Trade, but the transactions did not involve wood pellets or any other goods subject to sanctions, for which the firm has the relevant documentation (however, these documents were not attached to the reply, so we are unable to verify their content). The company added that its policy is based on compliance with rules relating to sanctions, prohibitions and trade restrictions.

 

Between 2022 and 2024, Turkey exported nearly 250,000 tonnes of wood pellets to the EU, worth 66 million euros. This is 10 times more in monetary terms than in the previous three years. In 2025, the unusual exports from Turkey to the EU returned to pre-sanction levels, with annual shipments amounting to 3 million euros.

 

The second problem for those wishing to sell Belarusian pellets to the EU turned out to be the specific nature of this sector’s market. We saw exactly what this entailed in a draft letter from former Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko to the Chair of the State Control Committee, Vasyl Gerasimov, which was provided to us by ‘Rabochy Rukh’:

 

“An analysis of trade flows in pellet production shows that this market is transparent and traceable <...>, which makes it impossible to rapidly alter market dynamics and redirect the flow of fuel pellet supplies (for example, by using a scheme involving a change in the country of origin of the goods).”

 

The correspondence between officials describes 17 attempts to circumvent the sanctions in detail. In nine of these, the firms lost money; in three, the European buyer was unable to settle the payment with the Belarusian state-owned enterprise. And only once was the transaction successful: the buyer was the Estonian company MVG Trading OU, owned by Belarusian citizen Vyacheslav Migay. Attempts to deceive European customs officials by passing off Belarusian fuel pellets as goods from Kazakhstan, or by shipping pellets via northern russian ports to Latvia, or by passing them off as Chinese goods to Lithuania, resulted in financial losses, the freezing of bank accounts and, in one instance, even criminal proceedings.

 

The Polish firm Supinvest, mentioned above, could also have lost money – nearly 50,000 euros. Correspondence between Golovchenko and Gerasimov describes how the company purchased pellets from a state-owned forestry enterprise but was unable to find a market for the product and did not export it from Belarus. When Supinvest contacted the forestry enterprise to request a refund, it was told that the funds had been spent on the production and storage of the cargo.

In another case, a Turkish buyer failed to complete customs clearance in time for a large consignment of pellets being transported by rail. The authorities seized the cargo on behalf of the state. The losses amounted to approximately $300,000.

An attempt by the Kazakh company AV GROUP 2022 LLC to deceive Polish customs officials was blocked by the Kazakh customs authorities. They informed the Polish public prosecutor’s office of the buyer’s breach of sanctions. As a result, the company’s accounts were frozen, and the company’s owner disappeared and ceased all contact. The buyer lost an advance payment of €80,000.

According to data from the Polish public prosecutor’s office, obtained at the request of the BRC, as of mid-2026, 187 criminal cases were pending concerning the circumvention of sanctions against Belarus and russia. In total, since the restrictions came into force, nearly 2,500 such cases have been recorded: 85 per cent of them concerned Belarus, and at least 91 criminal cases were specifically linked to woodworking products. Some of the cases have led to arrests and court proceedings. One of the most recent examples at the time of publication: in December 2025, the Pomeranian Customs and Tax Administration detained three Poles and two russians who had falsified dates on contracts for wood products and changed the country of origin of the goods to Kazakhstan or Turkey. They now face between 3 and 30 years’ imprisonment.

To rescue the industry, which had suffered an export fiasco, the Belarusian authorities launched a programme in May 2022 to increase domestic consumption of wood pellets. As part of the programme, experiments were carried out at thermal power stations and cement works to convert gas-fired furnaces and boilers to run on pellets. Following these trials, the enterprises agreed to purchase wood-based fuel, but at a price 37 per cent below cost, which made the deal unprofitable. At the same time, the authorities launched a programme to encourage pellet consumption among the general public. It provided for compensation from the state budget of up to 40 per cent of the cost of pellet boilers and the preferential sale of a fixed volume of wood pellets.

 

Serhiy Chalyi, an economic commentator and presenter of the programme ‘Chalyi: Economy’, described the programme’s outcome:

 

‘If you calculate the sales volumes to the public and divide them by the quota under which you buy these pellets at a subsidised price, it turns out that the public purchased approximately 1,200–1,300 boilers. That is an incredibly small number, even compared with neighbouring countries. And, on the whole, it is a failure. <...> It must be understood that even these 1,300 people who signed up for this programme could find themselves in the worst possible position if the [European Union] market for these pellets does indeed open up. Consequently, the price will be completely different – a European one. And so, will the state be willing to subsidise not only the boilers but also the cost of these pellets for the population?’

 

Officials had expected that by 2025, domestic consumption of pellets in Belarus would reach 250,000 tonnes per year. The reality turned out to be five times worse — 52,000 tonnes. Despite the failure of the plan, the Ministry of Forestry intends to build another pellet plant in the Uzden Forestry Enterprise. Due to sanctions, the project has been put on hold, “but the district intends to launch a new pellet-fired boiler house”, which, according to a journalist from one of the state-run publications, “opens up further prospects”.

 

Source: BIC