Thousands of Austrian Glock pistols imported into Russia over the past two years despite sanctions

Fifth-generation Glock 17 pistols. Photo: Official website of Glock GmbH.

RU

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, at least 3,606 Glock pistols have been imported into Russia, circumventing sanctions, according to an investigation by The Insider. Of these, 3203 units were produced by Austrian manufacturer Glock GmbH. and another 403 by the U.S. firm Glock Inc. A large portion of the Russian importers of Glock pistols have business ties to European arms manufacturers.

Who is importing Glocks into Russia?

1,667 pistols were imported collectively by Kolchuga LLC (ООО «Кольчуга», 348 units), Orel LLC (ООО «Орел», 63 units), Test-Oruzhie LLC (ООО «Тест-Оружие», 1,081 units) and Fort LLC (ООО «Форт», 175 units). As previously reported by The Insider, these companies are linked to Russkiy Orel LLC (lit. “Russian Eagle”; ООО «Русский Орел»), which is 58% owned by Beretta Holding S.A. Inc., a firm located in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

Alliance LLC (ООО «Альянс») imported 150 pistols and 115 Austrian ISSC SPA carbines in .22 LR caliber. An investigation by the Czech publication Investigace, following up on The Insider's investigation in February, revealed that the founders of this company, Filip Gulčak and Mikhail Udalov, also own the Czech company Lynxnight s.r.o.

Dana Procházková is the managing director of Lynxnight — and Gulčak's and Udalov's business partner. Her husband, Václav Procházky, has been the representative of the ammunition manufacturer Sellier & Bellot on the Czech market since the early 2000s.

Other major importers are Aurora LLC (ООО «Аврора», 545 pistols) and Novo-Obninsk-Import LLC (ООО «Ново-Обнинск-Импорт», 35 pistols), owned by businessman Nikolai Nefelov, as well as Artemida LLC (ООО «Артемида», 421 pistols), which is owned by Anatoly Yezhelev.

Glocks from Russia's former space chief

The production of Glock pistols has been localized in Russia for two years. In July 2012, the Promtechnologia group of companies published a press release on the signing of an agreement with Glock GmbH for the assembly of three models of fourth-generation Glock semi-automatic pistols (Glock 17, 34, and 35). Glock GmbH would supply the components and the Moscow-based defense plant would handle the assembly.

The announcement has since been removed, but information from it is available on blogs and in the publications of the Kalashnikov magazine.

In 2013, these weapons were at the center of a scandal. Activists of the Rospil Project and anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny drew attention to two government tenders to purchase over three hundred Glock pistols at rates four times higher than retail prices even in Russia. Navalny attributed the inflated prices to the fact that Alexei Rogozin, son of Dmitry Rogozin, then a deputy prime minister in the Russian government, had previously served as deputy general director of Promtechnologia — the company in charge of assembling the pistols.

Dmitry Rogozin, the former head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency, himself posed for journalists with a new Austrian-made Glock in the occupied Donetsk Region of Ukraine in October 2022 — shortly before he was shot in the buttocks during a banquet in a restaurant in Donetsk. At the time, media outlets, such as the Belarusian publication Naša Niva, ironically noted that Rogozin had gone to fight against NATO fully dressed in NATO gear. Almost all of Rogozin's clothes and equipment — from his winter coat to his flak jacket and boots — were made in Europe or the United States.

The Russian Federal Penitentiary Service in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug reported the death of Alexei Navalny in the IK-3 prison above the Arctic Circle on February 16. The politician's family and associates are certain that he was murdered. Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, vowed to continue her husband's cause after his death.

As reported by The Insider earlier today, at least 169 Austrian Steyr Mannlicher rifles and pistols were imported into Russia during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Austrian weapons continue to flow into Russia despite EU sanctions and Austria's stance of neutrality, which justifies its refusal to officially supply weapons to Ukraine.