Russian billionaire Konstantin Nikolaev received EU subsidies while a company linked to him was importing Austrian Glock pistols to Russia

The machines used by the Moscow plant to manufacture sniper rifles also came from Europe. As The Insider previously reported, Promtekhnologiya acquired metalworking equipment from the brands DMG Deckel Maho and DMG Gildemeister, as well as an optical measuring device from DMG Mori, through the Swiss firm Biostrom International AG.

The Swiss prosecutor’s office did eventually open criminal proceedings over these deliveries — but only in the summer of 2023, eight years after the technology transfer took place. In the end, prosecutors accepted the explanation from Biostrom International AG, which claimed to have assumed that the Russian arms plant was acquiring the machines not for its own use, but for resale. In a second case, the company’s technical director received a fine of 1,800 Swiss francs ($2250). After violating their country’s War Material Act (Kriegsmaterialgesetz) by delivering machines on which thousands of rifles for the Russian military were produced, the Swiss intermediaries were fined an amount roughly equivalent to the price of 300 cups of coffee in Zurich.

From Donbas to Iran

In August 2023, after the Municipal Scanner project reported on the use of ORSIS rifles by Wagner Group mercenaries, Promtekhnologiya claimed it only manufactures hunting and sporting weapons. However, that assertion is contradicted by the calibers of its rifles: in addition to the .338 Lapua Magnum, the plant also produces the much larger 375 Chey Tac and .50 Browning. Such rifles fall into the anti-materiel class, designed not only to target personnel but also light armored vehicles.

Promtekhnologiya has been supplying its rifles to the Russian Ministry of Defense for more than a decade. The earliest known contract was signed on May 15, 2015, under which the ORSIS SE T-5000 rifle chambered in .308 Win. was purchased by military unit 28178, part of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). Since the start of the full-scale invasion in Ukraine, civilian Russian shooters have complained that they are unable to buy ORSIS rifles, as everything produced is redirected to the needs of the Ministry of Defense. Open-source evidence shows that Promtekhnologiya rifles are used by snipers in the 7th Air Assault Division, the 24th Guards Special Forces Brigade, the “Española” battalion of the 88th Reconnaissance and Assault Brigade, the 98th Guards Airborne Division, and the 132nd Special Guards Motor Rifle Brigade.

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Beyond the Russian army, ORSIS rifles can also be seen in service with Belarus’s SOBR special forces, the Vietnamese armed forces, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC receives the Russian rifles together with German-made Schmidt & Bender 3-12×50 PM2 scopes.

How a partner of Rogozin, Rotenberg, and the FSB receives EU subsidies

Konstantin Nikolaev’s arms business developed in close partnership with members of the Russian government — and an FSB general. In the early 2010s, when Moscow created a special council to promote private arms companies, it was headed by Minister for Open Government Affairs Mikhail Abyzov — who at the same time was a co-owner of Promtekhnologiya. In 2019, Abyzov was imprisoned after being convicted of large-scale fraud.

Until 2012, Alexey Rogozin, the son of Dmitry Rogozin (then the deputy prime minister overseeing the military-industrial complex and defense procurement), served as deputy director of Promtekhnologiya. After accusations that this arrangement constituted a conflict of interest, Alexey Rogozin had to leave the company. He was soon replaced by Dmitry Rogozin’s nephew, Roman Rogozin.