Eurasia Press & News
The owners of the Russian Promet group of companies, a contractor for the Ministry of Defense, are simultaneously carrying out military contracts in Lithuania, The Insider has found out. Thanks to the passports of Poland and Romania, the beneficiaries of the business manufacturing safes for weapons and boxes for shells are successfully doing business with the army and security agencies both in Russia and in NATO countries. As a supplier, Promet received data on the location of NATO military units and had access to them. At the same time, the GRU had previously organized a series of explosions at ammunition depots in Central and Eastern Europe.
Systemically important company of the Tula region
This summer, Russian journalists found the most conscientious officer of the Ministry of Defense: he turned out to be a colonel who, after receiving a bribe, went to the police and surrendered. He received the money and the car from one of the military contractors for “turning a blind eye” to the execution of previous orders and lobbying for new ones. He was corrupted by top managers of the Promet group of companies.
At first glance, Promet’s business is quite peaceful: it produces safes and metal furniture. The founder of the group of companies, Evgeny Petrov, is a scientist and a graduate of the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys. At the university, he became friends with Mikhail Fridman, but, unlike the future oligarch, he did not start out trading everything, but with private orders for scientific developments and research. And only a few years later, he began to import safes from abroad to Russia, and later set up their production within the country.
“Promet” fulfills the state defense order, it is one of the systemically important companies of the Tula region, which is entrusted with the task of fulfilling strategically important orders, said the former governor of the region Alexey Dyumin. He admitted that he himself helped “Promet” find contact with the Ministry of Defense, after which a military representative office was opened at the enterprise, and the plant became a permanent military supplier. Dyumin used to be the deputy head of the Ministry of Defense, Vladimir Putin’s bodyguard, and after leaving the post of the head of the region, he became the official assistant to the president and took the post of Secretary of the State Council.
Promet regularly participates in the military-technical forum “Army” held by the Ministry of Defense. At one of these forums, the company presented fire-resistant boxes for ammunition, including a closure for rockets for launching from Grad combat vehicles.
In addition to fire-resistant containers for storing ammunition, Promet has established supplies for the Ministry of Defense and civilian products: cabinets, safes, industrial furniture.
The companies of the Promet group also supply other security agencies of Russia. Thus, OOO NPO Promet, according to the state procurement website, has been noted for the supply of safes, metal doors and cabinets to the structures of the military prosecutor’s office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Penitentiary Service.
Contractors of the Ministry of Defense, courts, prosecutor’s office, Ministry of Internal Affairs and FSB
Evgeny Petrov owns 67.81% of the authorized capital of NPO Promet LLC, his junior partner Konstantin Smirnov – 31.18%. In the same proportion, they owned Spetstekhmet LLC until March 2023 , until they rewrote it to nominees.
Spetstekhmet supplied the Russian National Guard with the mobile fortification structure “System BZK “ZUBR “. Its former subsidiary Technoimport also has an impressive portfolio of state orders – for 1.2 billion rubles: this included the supply of safes and archive cabinets for the defense corporation Rostec, the Ministry of Defense, courts, the prosecutor’s office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB.
Petrov personally controls 100% of Eurosafe-Crimea LLC. This company, registered in Simferopol, supplies safes and metal cabinets to the occupation administrations of Crimea and Sevastopol, the military prosecutor’s office of the Black Sea Fleet, the Ministry of Justice of Crimea, the prosecutor’s office of Sevastopol and the Federal Protective Service.
Neither Petrov’s work in the occupied territories nor his contracts with the Ministry of Defense prevent him from trading with EU countries and doing business there. Thus, according to customs data available to The Insider, NPO Promet exported safes to Poland this year (for a total of $254,000 over 3 months – from the end of March to the end of May).
Neither Petrov’s work in the occupied territories nor his contracts with the Ministry of Defense prevent him from doing business in the EU
The recipient was the Warsaw-based company Promet Safe, controlled by Petrov himself, who has Polish citizenship in addition to Russian citizenship. His junior partner Smirnov has a Romanian passport.
The Bulgarian company Promet Safe sends locks and other goods for safes to the Russian NPO Promet. Promet Safe is also controlled by Petrov and Smirnov, in Bulgaria they have an office in Sofia and a factory in the city of Kazanlak. The company calls itself the leader in the production of safes and metal office furniture in all of Eastern Europe.
Technically, imports from the Bulgarian company to Russia go mainly through Lithuania. Petrov also has his own company in Vilnius — Eurosafe LT . There is also a safe store in the Lithuanian capital. But that is not the most interesting thing.
Russian clients in the army and official structures of Lithuania
Since 2017, Eurosafe LT has won about 100 public tenders in Lithuania, mostly for the supply of safes and document storage equipment to various institutions, including the military. The total value of the contracts is slightly less than 500 thousand euros.
Two days before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Lithuanian Defense Ministry’s Special Operations Battalion signed a contract with Eurosafe for nearly €12,000, ordering a total of six safes for storing classified information, including delivery to the special forces headquarters.
The Lithuanian military’s medical service is a long-standing customer of Eurosafe, with the last contract signed in April 2024. This unit of the Baltic state’s armed forces also hired Eurosafe as a storage provider to protect classified documents in the summer of 2021.
Eurosafe has several clients in the Lithuanian armed forces, including infantry divisions, the air force, and two agencies of the Ministry of Defense. One of these, the Defense Material Agency, is of critical importance because it is responsible for procuring weapons and equipment for the Lithuanian military. The agency purchased four heavy-duty safes from Eurosafe in July 2022 — nearly six months after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian defense contractor also supplies safes to the Lithuanian Government Chancellery and the VIP Protection Service, which is responsible for protecting the president, prime minister and foreign delegations. Eurosafe has also won public tenders at the Prosecutor General’s Office and has made a mark on deliveries of gun safes to a unit of the Lithuanian Interior Ministry ( FNTT ).
Russian military contractor company supplies safes to Lithuanian government chancery
The supply of safes to military units is a serious vulnerability in conditions where the GRU has been organizing explosions at military warehouses in NATO countries for many years .
Reaction
“I will give the order to collect all the information. And it will be necessary to inevitably change these products. Without a doubt, these safes will need to be removed. If they [representatives of Eurosafe] had access to the premises during installation, then all sorts of intelligence-related risks arise because of this. A separate investigation is needed into how all this was done,” Lithuanian Defense Minister Laurynas Kaščiūnas told Siena journalists.
The Minister promised to take immediate measures to assess the risks associated with the procurements won by Eurosafe LT. He also considered it necessary to adjust the legislation so that the beneficiaries of companies participating in even small procurements are subject to more thorough assessment.
In a commentary for The Insider, Yevgeny Petrov initially denied that he was a contractor for military structures in Europe, but then admitted it. “Maybe this [Lithuanian] office sold something, but these are ridiculous figures. We sell safes. I personally do not work with any security agencies. If any of our subsidiaries sold something to someone, then probably really… We sold in America at one time, and in Iraq. If a tender is announced, and we are there on the market, then we sell.” Petrov claims that he is not aware that his Lithuanian company sells products to the military: “Not with such figures. If we were talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, then perhaps we could comment on something. But if we are talking about one-off small sales, we do not control it.” Petrov refused to answer the question of which country he permanently resides in.
According to The Insider, Petrov’s European companies have received government contracts in other NATO countries, including Estonia and Latvia, over the years. In official documents, Yevgeny Petrov states that he permanently resides in Poland. However, according to The Insider, he regularly visits Russia. On average, he has spent about 4 months a year there since 2022.
