From the Barents Sea to the Thames: Who is behind Russian fish exports to Europe?

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To which European countries the largest fishing companies in the North-West of Russia sold their goods and who bought them. While Russians are horrified by rising prices, Chronicles.Media has studied the fishing market.

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Revenue of fishing companies in the Northwestern Federal District of Russia (NWFD) exceeded 180 billion rubles in 2023 (nearly $2 billion), as calculated by “Chronicles” on the basis of the Kontur.Focus counterparty check database. Legal entities from Vitaly Orlov‘s Norebo Holding earned the most.

Companies from the ten largest groups of “fish hosts” of the NWFD mainly sell goods to the Netherlands. They shipped 35.7 thousand tons of fish and seafood there. In many cases, the kingdom serves simply as a transshipment point. Fish and seafood were bought by Danish, Norwegian, Portuguese and Polish partners.

Norebo Europe (UK), Sirena (Norway) and Daalimpex Velsen (Netherlands) accounted for the largest share of sales. Together they purchased more than 28 thousand tons of fish.

For this study, Chronicles identified Russian companies that received fishing quotas in 2023 in the Northern and Western fishery basins – orders of the Federal Fishing Agency (orders No. 669, No. 711, No. 726, No. 727, No. 729).

To identify the largest groups of related companies, we unloaded data on all co-owners of companies that received quotas in 2023 from the Federal Tax Service database and identified the beneficiaries of these groups, as well as calculated their total revenue. Using data from the customs database, Chronicles collected information on the exports of these companies to European countries and identified the largest sellers of fish and seafood in general.

In first place in terms of total revenue and revenue from trade with Europe is the Norebo holding of dollar billionaire Vitaly Orlov. Most of its companies are managed by Denis Starkov, a 50-year-old businessman from Murmansk, while another three are managed by “Management Company Norebo”, whose beneficiary is Orlov.

The largest exporters in this group are “Taurus” and “Sogra Fishing Company”. The buyers are “Norebo Europe” and “Norebo Hong Kong”, registered in Great Britain. These are foreign companies of the same Norebo holding.

In September 2023, the first of them changed ownership and name: the main owner of the company, renamed from Norebo Europe to 12OZ, became a British citizen Andrei Petrik. Before him, for several years the main owner was Orlov’s son Nikita, who has Norwegian citizenship. But this reshuffle should not have affected Orlov’s assets, as Petrik is his longtime business partner: since 2019, both have been defendants in the Norebo Holding shares case, which is being heard by the High Court in London. One of the court rulings states that Petrik managed the holding’s offshore companies, which he controlled from the UK, and also administered the payment of dividends to the Norebo group.

In 2023, “Taurus” shipped 5,800 tons of fish to “Norebo Europe” and “Norebo Hong Kong” in the Netherlands, receiving $32 million, according to customs records. “Sogra Fishing Company” sold 4,600 tons of fish to the same companies for $30.9 million, selling through Dutch customs points and Poland’s Gdansk.

However, now the way to Europe for this holding may be difficult: in 2024, the Netherlands did not let a vessel of a company belonging to Orlov’s holding enter the country. This was preceded by an investigation by the local publication “Pointer”. The publication said that intelligence services were using Russian watercraft, in particular those belonging to Norebo, for reconnaissance operations. The company, of course, denied this.

Two companies from this cluster of Dmitry Ozersky and Gennady Mirgorodsky sold fish and seafood to European partners. They are “Arkhangelsk Trawl Fleet” (ATF) and “Virma”. ATF is headed by Sergei Zarubin. He also heads the Arkhangelsk division of the “North-West Industrial Consortium” of Ozersky and Mirgorodsky.

ATF and Virma sold fish and seafood to ten European companies in 2023, generating a total of $49.8 million in revenue. The buyers were Danish, Portuguese, Polish, Dutch and Lithuanian companies.

It is worth noting that some companies import fish not only for their own market. For example, the Polish company Abramczyk, which has been importing fish from Russia since 1995, buys products from a dozen other countries, including New Zealand, Norway, and Iceland, and sells them throughout Europe – the company’s website lists 17 European countries.

Not only Ozersky and Mirgorodsky traded with the Polish company Abramczyk in 2023, but also the former vice-governor of St. Petersburg and ex-presidential envoy to the NWFD, Ilya Klebanov.

In 2023, Klebanov’s son Konstantin became the sole beneficiary of the St. Petersburg-based company NDF, which controls exporters “Kompaniya LKT” and “Megra” and several other fishing companies. This happened shortly before Ilya Klebanov came under UK sanctions.

The European Union has not yet imposed such sanctions on him, so EU companies are free to cooperate with Klebanov family companies. If the EU puts the entrepreneur on the sanctions lists and European partners refuse to trade with companies affiliated with him, the Klebanovs’ business may lose income from exports to Europe. In 2023, his total revenue from the sale of fish to European companies amounted to $18.4 million.

Igor Zubarev, a senator from Karelia, was less fortunate. In 2022, for being a politician who supported the annexation of the occupied territories of Ukraine, he fell not only under the sanctions of Britain, but also the EU, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. To save the business, Zubarev then began to transfer it to nominees, as “Chronicles.Media” has already written about.

But sanctions against Zubarev proved to be no obstacle for several European companies. “Chronicles” has already told about the Norwegian “Aalesund Seafood”, which did not stop cooperating with Zubarev’s business. Even after he fell under sanctions, the Norwegians bought products from two of his companies for the sum of $1.8 million.

In December 2023, Zubarev transferred many of his companies to the closed mutual investment fund “Dal”. Such funds often hide behind the real owners who want to protect their assets. Among the companies transferred to this fund are “RK Virma” and “Soglasiye”, which in 2023 received fishing quotas and sold some of their products to European countries. But “Aalesund Seafood” is not the only European company that cooperated with Zubarev’s companies.

In 2023, Danish “Sirena” bought cod and haddock from the same Zubarev companies for $2.1 million. In 2022, one of Sirena’s executives said that the company was finalizing existing contracts with Russian companies and would not renew them. But judging by the customs data, by the end of 2023 it was not possible to do this: at the end of the year, the company bought 63.4 tons of cod from the Russian “RK Virma”, controlled by the sanctioned Zubarev, paying $151.2 thousand dollars for it.

The second importer is the British company “Ice & Cold Limited”. Its owner is 42-year-old British citizen Elena Fomina. In 2023 “RK Virma” sold 8.3 tons of cod fillets to Fomina’s company for $41.9 thousand. In London, the businesswoman has another company related to the fishing industry – “Fish House Limited”.

“Ice & Cold Limited” started buying fish from Russian companies in January 2022, according to customs statistics. Among the suppliers, apart from Zubarev’s companies, there was also a company of Murmansk businessman Hovhannes Shankoyan, who, among other things, together with his brother, receives large state farms in the Murmansk region.

The largest exporting company owned by Murmansk businessman Vladimir Khizhnyakov is “Murman Seafood”. In 2023, it sold fish to four companies – Danish “Dansea Nordic”, Norwegian “Stale Nilsen Seafood”, Dutch “Sea Frozen” and Lithuanian “MB Amadropas”.

In total, “Murman Seafood” exported more than 2,000 tons of fish, generating $9.3 million in revenue.

The only European partner of Murmansk businessman and former deputy of Murmansk State Duma Yuri Zadvorny’s companies is Denmark’s “Kangamiut Seafood”.

The Danes were going to stop cooperating with Russia back in May 2022. Then one of the members of the Danish parliament, Preben Bang Henriksen, who was a member of the board of directors of Kangamiut Seafood, left his post in the company because of the risks to his political career.

But, apparently, by the end of 2023, giving up trade with Russia was not possible: in 2023, “Kangamiut Seafood” bought 261.9 tons of fish from “Andromeda” and “Murmanseld 2” for $902,400.

Another supplier of cod to the Danish company “Kangamiut Seafood” was Murmansk-based “Saami”, founded by former State Duma deputy Vladimir Gusenkov.

In 2021, Sami was going to be bought by the already mentioned Orlov’s holding Norebo. The obstacle at that time was a corporate conflict at “Saami”. Litigation between Gusenkov’s widow Inna Gusenkova and the former head and co-owner of the company Aram Barseghyan continued until 2024. In 2023, the court partially satisfied “Saami” claims, recovering 4.8 million rubles in damages from Barseghyan. Until now, the owners of the company are Gusenkova and Sergey and Ilya Tsyganov (the former was the president of the Murmansk “Association of Fishermen”).

In 2023, the Danes purchased more than a thousand tons of cod from Saami for $5.2 million.

In 2020, businessman Yuri Tuzov was sentenced to nine years, accused of organizing kidnapping and extortion. Therefore, today the assets of this group are managed by Tuzov’s relatives.

The only company from the ace group that exported fish in 2023 was “Relit Ltd”. It sold 110 tons of cod for $390,000 to “Deep Water Fish Trading Dwc”, a UAE-registered company, shipping the goods via the Netherlands.

Alexey Dityatev, a unanimous businessman and entrepreneur from the Nenets Autonomous District, like his colleague Tuzov, had no European supplies in 2023. He too sold fish to “Deep Water Fish Trading Dwc”, a company registered in the Emirates. Like Tuzov, Dityatev shipped the goods through a Dutch port.

His “Andeg Fishing Collective” total supply to the Dubai-based company was much larger: the company sold 1,500 tons of fish worth $5.9 million to “Deep Water Fish Trading Dwc”.

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“Chronicles.Media” sent inquiries to European companies that bought Russian fish after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. None of them sent a response.

According to UN data for 2022, Russia is among the world leaders in fish and seafood production and ranks first in Europe, but for most Russians many types of fish remain a luxury. Even the speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko noted this. As Alexander Fomin, executive director of the Association of Production and Trade Enterprises of the Fish Market, told Ura.ru, the most affordable fish in Russia is pollock. However, the main sources of protein for Russians are dairy products, poultry and pork.

It has always been more profitable for Russian fishermen to send their goods abroad, where they are paid more. For Russians, however, this product is only getting more expensive. According to the UN, the country’s fishing fleet has shrunk by 70% since 1995. In early 2025, the Russian Central Bank explained the rise in prices by the fact that there are fewer raw materials available and the costs for processors and fishermen to buy fuel, maintain equipment and pay salaries are increasing.

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