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Mariupol was completely destroyed by Russia. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed and displaced. Reconstruction plays a central role in the Russian propaganda war. Loud monitorGerman companies are also involved in this research.
It was one of the most terrible battles of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. For weeks, Russian troops besieged Mariupol on the Black Sea, starving the population and sparing neither the patients in hospitals nor civilians hiding in the theater. Many survivors were driven out by Vladimir Putin’s army. A large city was completely ruined.
When the Russian flag was raised on the destroyed buildings of Mariupol, construction work on the “new” Mariupol began. A Russian city, with Russian residents, built on behalf of the Kremlin. There are construction sites all over the city, blocks of flats built out of the ground.
Putin in Mariupol
This is so important for Russian propaganda that even Putin personally got an impression of the progress of the work last year. “We will rebuild the apartments, schools, hospitals, theaters and museums,” Putin said of Mariupol. Everything that he previously had brutally destroyed.
But who will help him with this project? Reporter of the ARD-Politics magazine monitor have started looking for clues. In annual reports, on company websites, in pictures and in videos – there is evidence and evidence everywhere that German companies are also playing an important role in the reconstruction of Mariupol.
They are heavy machines or windows on which the logos of several German manufacturers can be found. And again and again on plaster bags: the name Knauf. The German family business from the Franconian province is a global leader in plaster production. Also because it has been doing important business in Russia for a long time.
4,000 Knauf employees continue to work in Russia
Company patriarch Nikolaus Knauf was Russian honorary consul for more than two decades; in photos he smiles next to President Putin. He retained this post even after the annexation of Crimea, and in 2018 he described the subsequent sanctions against Russia as “terrible”. Knauf says it continues to employ 4,000 people in Russia and has billions in sales there.
Knauf writes monitor in a general statement on the Russian business, they condemn the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and follow all EU sanctions against Russia. They produce in Russia “exclusively for the Russian market”. However, Knauf left an extensive list of questions from the editorial team unanswered.
So does the Russian business have nothing to do with the German parent company? Sanctions law expert Viktor Winkler disagrees: “The idea that if I have a subsidiary in Russia only in the Russian area, only on the Russian territories, that this is, so to speak, irrelevant to sanctions, that is an absolute myth and couldn’t be further away the reality.”
Russia benefits
Even if building materials are not fundamentally covered by the EU’s sanctions rules, companies must be able to “effectively rule out that there is a military connection, any military connection to what they deliver,” says Winkler.
This does not necessarily have to be an act of war in the narrower sense. “But it is also enough that the military, and Russia’s military actions, benefit indirectly from what they do,” says the expert.
This “military relationship” arises from the client: an official Knauf dealer publicly advertises that he has built a residential building project with Knauf building materials on behalf of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Photos of this construction site with Knauf sacks are available monitor-editorial team.
Criticism from Kiesewetter
The CDU member of the Bundestag and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag, Roderich Kiesewetter, condemns the participation of German companies in the construction work in Mariupol. They placed themselves in the service of a war that violated international law: “This is very obvious with Knauf because they are actually cementing Russian power in the occupied territories, including in Mariupol.”
But Knauf is not an isolated case. On the of monitor Based on the images and videos evaluated, concrete blocks in green packaging film are noticeable on numerous construction sites. On it is the logo of a German company from Münsterland in North Rhine-Westphalia – WKB Systems GmbH. The company equips, among other things, factories for the production of concrete blocks.
The company’s main shareholder is the Russian oligarch Viktor Konstantinovich Budarin. Budarin used his German company as a supplier to the construction industry in Putin’s Russia. Customs data monitor present, show: Over several years, WKB Systems GmbH supplied entire systems for factories for the production of such aerated concrete blocks to a Russian company in Budarin – apparently the very company with whose products Russia is trying to consolidate its power in Mariupol.
EU sanctions without a plan?
Numerous Russian oligarchs have already been sanctioned in recent years. Budarin is not one of them. Sanctions law expert Winkler says: “To put it cautiously, the EU’s selection of which oligarch is sanctioned and which is not cannot yet be assigned to a uniform plan.”
Many building contractors in particular are not sanctioned, says Winkler. Although it would certainly be conceivable – also in the Budarin case: “From a legal point of view, there is a very good reason to sanction this person, namely that this person is most likely doing a lot to strengthen the Russian economy. And Germany is very much here heavily involved.” WKB Systems GmbH did not comment when asked.
You can see more on this and other topics on Thursday at 9:45 p.m. on Monitor in Erste.