Serbian company supplied Russia with €27m worth of machine tools for ballistic missiles and aircraft – investigation

It has emerged that the Serbian metalworking equipment manufacturer Grindex exported approximately €27.5 million in machine tools to Russia after the start of the full-scale invasion. The equipment reached plants in Russia's military-industrial complex through intermediary companies.

Source: a joint investigation by Radio Liberty's Balkan and Ukrainian services

Details: Defence Intelligence of Ukraine has information that the Serbian company, based in the city of Kikinda, shipped machine tools to Russia from at least March 2022 to March 2025. The equipment was registered under Russian intermediaries before being delivered to sanctioned military plants.

One of the main buyers was the Russian company AMG (Alfa Machinery Group), which was sanctioned by the US in 2023 and by the EU in late 2024. Grindex signed a deal with AMG in December 2022 and delivered a €778,000 machine tool after the US added AMG to its sanctions list.

The machine tool eventually went to the I. Rumyantsev Machine-Building Association, part of the state-owned Rostec corporation, which makes assemblies for combat aircraft. Russian buyers purchased a second machine tool from the Serbian manufacturer in 2023 for more than US$384,000. It was transferred to the Hydraulics plant in Ufa in spring 2025 to make moving parts for military aircraft fuel and hydraulic systems.

In addition, Grindex machine tools were received by two sanctioned Russian intermediaries: Finval Energo (worth €12 million) and Unimatic MSK (worth nearly €980,000). Both companies supply machine tools to plants in Russia's defence-industrial base.

The equipment also reached Russian manufacturers through companies that are currently outside sanctions. In 2024, the Russian company Krona transferred a Serbian-made grinding machine to the Machine-Building Design Bureau. The bureau and its parent company, Rostec, are both subject to sanctions. The bureau makes weapons such as the Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile system.

Another machine tool was imported in 2025 by Denis Babichev, a Moscow-based businessman acting as a front. It was later leased to the Perm Scientific and Production Instrument-Making Company, a manufacturer of navigation and stabilisation systems for Russian MiG-29 and Su-27 fighters.

Serbia's Ministry of Trade told the journalists that it has no information about Grindex products and had not issued the company permits to sell dual-use goods. Serbian customs had also conducted no inspections of the company's exports. [Dual-use means serving both civilian and military purposes.]

Background:

• In 2022, Serbian exports of dual-use goods to Russia increased by 220% compared with the level before the full-scale invasion. Serbia remains one of the few European countries that have not joined Western sanctions against Russia.
• In November 2023, a Radio Liberty investigation documented the supply of at least US$71.1 million worth of dual-use goods to Russia via Serbia. During the full-scale war, Kyiv's Western partners have sanctioned at least 11 Serbian companies that have helped Russia's military-industrial complex.
• In autumn 2025, the InformNapalm intelligence community released a set of leaked classified documents from the Voronezh Experimental Design Bureau of Engine Building. They show that Russian production of components for the Su-57 fighter jet and the future PAK DA Poslannik bomber depends directly on supplies of Grindex grinding machines.

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