Czech corporation Alta has continued to service machines that are used by the main producers of Russian tanks and artillery — even after the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, The Insider found as part of an investigation conducted together with the Czech outlet VoxPot. Alta’s beneficiary, Vladimír Plášil, has represented Rosatom’s interests in the Czech Republic and Slovakia since 1995, and in 2012 created a joint venture to export Russian nuclear fuel to the European market.
After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Alta formally exited a portion of its Russian assets. Two of the four companies were sold to lawyer Alexei Panin, who continues to represent the company in Russian courts to this day. A number of indicators suggest the transactions were fictitious: the sold firms use the same domains, the same customs broker, and the same suppliers as Alta’s entities. Two other legal entities are still directly controlled by Alta. Companies linked to Alta continue to service Uralvagonzavod, as well as the main producer of Russian tube and rocket artillery, the Motovilikha Plants.
How Alta Invest helped rebuild Russia’s military-industrial complex
The Czech industrial group Alta was founded in 1991 by Vladimír Plášil, a Ukrainian-born Czech citizen. The group’s parent company is Alta Invest, which is owned by VPI a.s., with annual revenue of $3.24 million.
Plášil is a close business partner of Rosatom. Starting from 1995 at the latest, he has represented the Russian nuclear corporation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In 2007, Plášil and Sergey Shmatko, president of Atomstroyexport, signed a memorandum on creating a joint venture in nuclear energy engineering. In 2012, Plášil set up a joint venture with the Russian state-owned corporation TVEL to export Russian nuclear fuel to the European market.
In addition to working for Rosatom in Eastern Europe, Plášil exported European industrial technologies to Russia. His Alta group focused on the heavy industry sector, boasting some of the largest enterprises in the CIS among its clients. In 1998, the group launched a sales office in Minsk, where Alta carried out modernization of the BelAZ plant. In 2002, an office was opened in Yekaterinburg. Soon after, this office launched a project to modernize the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Uralvagonzavod, along with projects to supply galvanizing and paint lines for Irkut Corporation.
In 2007, the group established its first Russian legal entity, Alta Ural LLC. That company’s successor, Alta Rus LLC, or A-R, specializes in the supply and servicing of machine tools and machining centers.
In 2011, Alta concluded a major deal to acquire Škoda Machine Tool. Although the plant was resold to a new owner in 2015, the import and servicing of Škoda machine tools remained an important part of Alta’s business. An Alta Invest report published in July 2022 stated that Alta Rus is the official representative of Škoda Machine Tool in Russia. After receiving a journalistic inquiry, the company removed the presentation from its website; however, a cached version remains available. In addition, A-R is a distributor of metalworking equipment produced by TOS Kuřim, ČKD Blansko, TOS Čelákovice, and the hydraulic press plant TS Plzeň a.s. (formerly Škoda Heavy Engineering).
In 2019, A-R acquired Ulyanovsk Heavy Machine Tool Plant LLC (ZSTU), expanding its capabilities in the production and repair of heavy machine tools. Built in the 1950s, the plant specializes in machining large, highly complex components that conventional machine tool factories cannot handle. ZSTU is equipped with a unique machine fleet and cranes with lifting capacities of up to 150 metric tons. Its main clients include several Russian defense enterprises: Lavochkin Research and Production Association, the M.V. Protsenko Start Research Production Center, Proletarsky Plant PJSC, Kalinin Machine-Building Plant PJSC, and Perm Machine-Building Plant, among others. Plášil’s role in Czech industrial exports to Russia is also reflected in his position as chairman of the Brno Chamber of Commerce for CIS countries.
How the Czech corporation maintained ties with Russian partners
As of early 2022, Alta Invest owned four companies in Russia: A-R LLC, Gudaktiv LLC, T21 LLC, and Ulyanovsk Heavy Machine Tool Plant LLC (ZSTU). In 2022, ZSTU was sold to T21 LLC, which in turn was acquired by Alexei Panin, a lawyer who has represented Alta in court proceedings since 2013. Notably though, a number of indicators suggest that the transaction was fictitious.
First, Panin had not previously founded any companies, and it is unlikely that a salaried employee would have sufficient funds to purchase a firm that had an annual turnover approaching $13 million. Second, Panin continues to represent Alta’s interests in Russian courts. On March 10, 2026, at a hearing in the Commercial Court of Sverdlovsk Region, Panin acted as a representative of A-R under a power of attorney dated December 10, 2025.
Third, the domains of Alta’s Russian subsidiary and the allegedly independent entities linked to Panin are registered to one another: A-R owns the domains alta-energo.ru, tr21v.ru, and ztsu.rf. T21, in turn, owns the domain a-r.ru, which was registered only after the company was sold to Panin.
In addition, A-R (which is owned by the Czech corporation Alta) and Panin’s T21 both import machine tools for a single customer: the Ulyanovsk-based ZSTU plant. The two allegedly independent firms bring machine tools from the same Chinese manufacturer into Russia, process them through the same customs broker, and list contact addresses on the same domains. On January 20, 2024, A-R imported a motorized belt conveyor from Verich (Shenzhen) Trading Co. The customs clearance was handled by SVTS Service Group LLC, and the contact details listed email addresses [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]. Six days later, on January 26, 2024, T21 imported a coordinate boring machine, also from Verich (Shenzhen) Trading Co. The customs clearance was again handled by SVTS Service Group, and the contact details listed email addresses on the same Alta domains: [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].
Although both A-R and T21 are based in Yekaterinburg, the orders for both companies listed Ulyanovsk as the place of shipment. The delivery terms indicated in the customs data — DAP Ulyanovsk — mean that the seller delivered the goods, cleared them through customs, and made them available to the buyer on a vehicle ready for unloading in Ulyanovsk. Such a chain of coincidences strongly suggests that A-R and T21 act as intermediaries in supplying the Ulyanovsk plant.
In response to an inquiry about the operations of its Russian enterprises, Alta Invest representatives stated that they do not maintain contact with Russian companies but that they chose not to sell these entities in order to avoid paying an increased tax to the Russian budget.
However, these claims are difficult to reconcile with the fact that senior management of the Czech group continued to travel to Russia and take direct part in managing Russian companies. Alta Invest Business Development Director Jiří Šalk made several trips to Russia, the most recent in September 2023. In 2023, Šalk personally signed the financial statements of Gudaktiv LLC for the previous year. The owner of the Alta group, businessman Vladimír Plášil, also continued to visit Russia after the start of the full-scale war. According to leaked border-crossing data, he last departed Moscow for Istanbul on December 14, 2022.
In addition to ownership and management, Alta directly supplied the Russian enterprise. On May 28, 2022, the Czech company delivered a Škoda CNC horizontal milling and boring machine to A-R. The total revenue of Alta’s enterprises for 2022–2024 amounted to 4 billion rubles ($52,510,700).
Czech machine tools for Russian defense plants
The revival of Russia’s military-industrial complex took place with active financial support from the EU. In 2009, the state-owned Czech Export Bank committed to providing €2 billion in loans over a period of up to 10 years for investment projects in the Sverdlovsk Region. Half of this amount was intended for the Uralvagonzavod research and production corporation, with Alta stepping up as one of the largest contractors for these projects. Due to the onset of the financial crisis, the allocated amount was ultimately reduced, and in April 2010, Alta confirmed the allocation of €280 million to Uralvagonzavod.
UVZ is Russia’s main tank manufacturer, producing T-90 tanks and upgraded T-72 tanks, Terminator fire support combat vehicles, BREM-1 armored recovery vehicles, and other heavy tracked equipment. The company has been under U.S. sanctions since July 17, 2014, and shortly after February 2022, the EU and most other Western countries imposed sanctions against it as well.
Yet neither sanctions nor the full-scale invasion compelled Alta to break with the tank plant. Formally sold to Panin but still linked to Alta, ZSTU continues to service machine tools at the Nizhny Tagil enterprise, as evidenced by court documents. A ruling by the Commercial Court of Sverdlovsk Region states that on February 10, 2023, ZSTU concluded a contract with Uralvagonzavod for the capital repair of a CNC turning and milling machining center. The cost of the repair was estimated at 60.2 million rubles ($790,300).
The importance of ZSTU for Russia’s defense industry can be illustrated by the case of the Wagner DDKSS-150 machine tool — as the plant reported on its repair via social media. Produced by the German company Wagner in 1931, the lathe has been operating at the Uralmash plant in Yekaterinburg ever since. Over time, it was equipped with new control and monitoring systems, but the original metal structure also required repair. For this purpose, the 250-ton machine had to be transported from Yekaterinburg to Ulyanovsk (likely because no plant in the Urals had the capacity to process such large equipment).
Uralmashzavod has been under U.S. sanctions since July 2023 and under UK sanctions since November 2023. In 2023, ZSTU upgraded another heavy machine tool for Uralmashzavod — a Schiess-Froriep RS 35/500S gear shaping machine for 84.6 million rubles ($1,110,700).
ZSTU repairs machine tools not only for Russia’s main tank producer but also for a leading Russian artillery manufacturer. As stated in a ruling of the Eleventh Commercial Appellate Court in Samara, on June 21, 2022, ZSTU signed subcontract agreement No. 710 with Perm-based Motovilikha Plants JSC. Under this agreement, ZSTU carried out a capital repair of a UF 5201 longitudinal milling machine worth 35.9 million rubles ($471,000). Motovilikha Plants JSC is part of Rostec and is the main Russian producer of tube and rocket artillery. The enterprise manufactures Tulpan self-propelled mortars, Giatsint-B guns, D-20 and Msta-B howitzers, Nona artillery systems, and Grad, Uragan, and Smerch multiple rocket launch systems.
In 2025, ZSTU filed a lawsuit against the Promtekhaero Research and Technology Center to recover 6.2 million rubles ($81,400) for the repair of a machine table, columns, and guides. Promtekhaero is engaged in modernizing radio-electronic airspace control systems for civil aviation and carries out upgrades for air defense and anti-space defense systems for the Russian Ministry of Defense. Since 2002, the company has had a separate office in premises leased from the “2nd Central Research Institute of the Russian Ministry of Defense.” Since March 23, 2024, Promtekhaero has been under EU sanctions.
Alongside the ZSTU plant, which was formally sold to Panin, Russia’s Alta subsidiary, A-R LLC, also works with sanctioned enterprises. According to a ruling issued by the Commercial Court of Sverdlovsk Region, A-R LLC entered into a contract and later a supplementary agreement with Chelyabinsk Forging and Pressing Plant PJSC (ChKPZ). Alta’s Czech subsidiary undertook to deliver a Skoda MT WT 200 GNR NC horizontal boring machine, manufactured in 1978 and modernized in 2008. A-R LLC delivered the machine and commissioned it on July 2, 2024, and subsequently continued servicing it, installing an angular milling head on May 27, 2025.
ChKPZ does not produce weapons as such but forms an important link in the military-industrial supply chain. The plant manufactures hot stampings and forgings for components of artillery systems, missile engines, and aircraft engines, as well as stamped wheel rims for special-purpose vehicles. ChKPZ has been under U.S. sanctions since February 2024 and under EU sanctions since June 2024.
Due to deliveries of Škoda machine tools, A-R sued the ZiO-Podolsk Machine-Building Plant JSC. According to a ruling by the Commercial Court of Moscow Region, A-R LLC, acting under a supply contract, undertook to sell and install an angular and universal milling head for a SKODA HCW 3-225 machine tool, manufactured in 2023. A-R delivered the equipment, but had to go to court to recover payment from the Rosatom-affiliated enterprise. The Podolsk plant is part of Atomenergomash and produces steam generators and heat-exchange equipment for nuclear submarines.
Another Czech machine tool has yet to find a buyer. On social media, ZSTU advertises a Škoda W200H horizontal boring machine equipped with a Siemens Sinumerik 840Dsl control system, modernized in 2010.
Machine tools for Luhansk and support for the “special military operation”
In October 2025, ZSTU reported the shipment of a UF 5212 longitudinal milling machine to Lugamash LLC in occupied Luhansk — a railway plant that is now part of Transmashholding and is announcing new railway rolling stock production.
According to ZSTU’s page on the Russian social network VKontakte, in March 2024 the plant’s team donated one day's wages in support of Russian armed forces fighting in Ukraine. In April 2024, ZSTU employees, in the presence of Ulyanovsky Regional Security Council Secretary Gennady Nerobeev, handed over three drones, video goggles, and batteries to the military.
Joint investigation with VoxPot. A video version of the investigation is available in Czech. The investigation used Tools of War and NorthData aggregators.
