Overview
- An ICIJ-led project details how a Cyprus-based procurement hub funneled sonars, ROVs, fiber-optic cable and vessels into Russia’s ‘Harmony’ seabed sensor system guarding its nuclear-submarine bastion in the Arctic.
- Leaked documents show more than €50 million in dual-use gear moved through Mostrello Commercial Ltd from 2014 to 2024, with shell firms in multiple offshore jurisdictions masking Russian end users.
- The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Mostrello and controller Alexey Strelchenko in October 2024 for supplying advanced technology to Russia, while implicated companies deny wrongdoing and cite compliance with rules in force at the time.
- A German court convicted intermediary Alexander Shnyakin in September, sentencing him to four years and ten months for illicit sales tied to the network, with investigators citing links to Russian intelligence services.
- Evidence traces NEC-made cables loaded in Kitakyushu in 2018 to Murmansk and into the Barents Sea, supporting findings that equipment deliveries helped build the Harmony network near Murmansk, Novaya Zemlya and Alexandraland.