The Belarusian company Rontek Machine Tools supplied more than $8.3 million worth of products to Russian enterprises linked to the military-industrial complex between September 2022 and June 2025. This is stated in an investigation by the Belarusian Investigative Center.
The largest buyer was Russia’s VENDE GRUPP, which received $4.23 million worth of machine tools and equipment. In February 2024, the company was sanctioned by the United States for supplying Russian enterprises with cutting tools and computer numerical control metalworking equipment.
Another $2.7 million worth of products went to SF Ural, which listed Russian defense industry enterprises among its partners. Other buyers identified by the BIC include Rost NN, whose activities include the production of ammunition, Metallmash, the St. Petersburg Tractor Plant and the Elektrostal Heavy Machinery Plant.
Journalists also found that 12 Rontek VMC 60C machine tools are installed at the St. Petersburg-based Resource enterprise. The company’s director told the BIC that almost all of its clients are linked to Russia’s defense industry. According to Ukrainian intelligence, Resource cooperates, in particular, with the Obukhov Plant and the Tactical Missiles Corporation.
Rontek Machine Tools Director Valery Shchurok said the company sold equipment to Russian distributors and had no information about the end buyers. According to him, the company no longer cooperates with VENDE GRUPP or SF Ural. The BIC emphasizes that the buyers’ links to Russia’s defense industry in themselves do not prove that the supplied machine tools were used directly to produce weapons.
Rontek Machine Tools manufactures metalworking equipment at the Great Stone China-Belarus Industrial Park. In October 2023, the company signed an agreement with China’s Shandong DEED Precision Machine Tool to establish production of high-precision machine tools. At the time, it was also announced that construction of the plant had begun, with Russia identified as its main market.
