At the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion to Ukraine Beretta announced that it would stop supplying goods to Russia. However, Russian Beretta importer Russkiy Oryol still imports Italian rifles and ammunition through countries friendly to Russia, including Turkey. Russkiy Oryol, created specifically to import Beretta products, was founded 15 years ago. Beretta still owns 57.95% of the importing company. Today, Russkiy Oryol has a turnover of 10 million euros. 

On June 12, 2024, the United States imposed sanctions against this importer of Italian weapons, but Beretta has not commented on the restrictions against its subsidiary.

This is not the only Italian business supplying weapons to Russia in violation of sanctions. Trap Aggressor analyst Roman Steblivskyi and his colleagues from the Investigative Reporting Project Italy investigated the activities of such companies in a publication for the Italian media L’Espresso. We will be publishing the main takeaways from the article in English and Ukrainian on our website. Subscribe to the project’s page on X to be the first to know all the news about sanctions against Russia.