Weapons for Ukraine by a Bulgarian intermediary who traded with Russian private military company

The Bulgarian arms company Bulcommerce KS has a contract for the export of ammunition for tens of millions of euros with an end user in Poland. Most likely, these munitions are destined for Ukraine. However, Bulcommerce CC’s business has Russian roots and registered trade relations with the Russian private military company Moran Security Group, considered the prototype of the sinister Wagner PMC, as well as with the state arms company of Belarus. Sources of the BRRD believe that the choice of this intermediary is not accidental and the goal is to delay and sabotage supplies.

Exports to Poland

Bulcommerce KC spoke in 2014 as a counterparty for a major arms supply to Ukraine. However, the company was not yet licensed and the contract failed. Today’s owner of “Bulcommerce CS” Kaloyan Stanislavov (in the leading photo on the left) told BRRD that he imported weapons items from Ukraine, but did not export to this country.

“Why don’t you ask with what weapons Russia is conducting its special military operation in Ukraine?” – this is how Stanislavov counters our question whether his company exports weapons or ammunition to Ukraine. He used precisely the terminology of the regime in the Kremlin – not war, but “special operation”, hinting that Bulgarian weapons somehow reach Russia.

However, BRRD sources in the arms sector say that Bulcommerce CC is now a major intermediary in the supply of Bulgarian weapons and ammunition to Ukraine through third countries, with contracts worth hundreds of millions of euros. The same sources say that supplies are delayed, which irritates the Ukrainian side and this was one of the reasons for the unusually long visit of the Foreign Minister of Ukraine to Sofia.

Our editorial office has a document for individual permission for the transfer of defense-related products, issued to Bulcommerce KS by the Interdepartmental Commission for Export Control and Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, with an identification number 019512 from March 25, 2022. The permit is for export to an end user in Poland and is valid until March 25, 2024. It refers to hundreds of thousands of ammunition from several items, produced in Bulgaria, worth tens of millions of euros.

Bulcommerce CS did not respond to our specific e-mail request for details of this delivery.

Russian Connection and Thriving Business

In the company history of “Bulcommerce CC” there is a distinct Russian connection. The company was established in 2011 by Kaloyan Stanislavov and his wife with BGN 300. capital and is a subsidiary of Armstechno, which has existed since 2008.

However, the parent company can not boast of a successful business. Due to contracts from 2008, Armstechno was sentenced years later to return advances and pay penalties to Kintex – BGN 375,360, as well as to the state arms company of Belarus “BELVNESHPROMSERVICE” – $ 25,300.00.

In 2015, Lithuanian Audrius Butkevicius co-owned Bulcommerce KS. He is a former Deputy Minister of Defence of Lithuania.

In 2015, another company was established with the name “Bulcommerce SB” with BGN 100. partners are Kaloyan Stanislavov,
Audrius Butkevicius
and Russian Sergei Yuryevich Totrov.

Totrov was the owner of two Russian companies with “Arsenal” in the name, declared bankrupt. Totrov and Butkevicius remained partners in Bulcommerce SB until 2019, when they sold their shares to Kaloyan Stanislavov.

2019 is a record year for Bulcommerce CC, which reports 59m euros. Lv. sales revenue. “Bulcommerce SB” can not boast of such results and according to its annual reports is rather a dormant company.

Trade relations with the prototype of PMC “Wagner”

On January 31, 2019, the Sofia City Court recognized and allowed the execution of a claim by Moran Security Group Ltd. (M.S.G.Ltd) against Bulcommerce CC for reimbursement of an advance payment of USD 21,792 to Moran Group, as well as legal costs worth USD 5,000. The claim follows a case won by Moran against Bulcommerce at the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce in a case with arbitration number V 2016/167. The decision of the court in Stockholm is final and is dated 19.06.2017.

Moran Security Group is believed to be the prototype of Wagner PMC, which is sanctioned by the US and the EU. The name of Belize-registered private defence firm Moran Security Group has emerged in high-profile scandals, such as the one in Nigeria in 2012, when the Nigerian army detained 15 Moran members for arms trafficking.

In 2013, the Deputy Director of Moran Vadim Gusev headed the so-called. The Slavic Corps is a mercenary military group of more than 200 Russians that was supposed to officially guard oil facilities in Syria. On the ground, however, the fighters were equipped with old T-72 and armored personnel carriers and sent 500 km away. to seize an oil field.

Along the way, Russian mercenaries are caught up in a battle with the Islamic State, in which they miraculously give only a few seriously injured. On their return to Russia, Gusev and his colleague from “Moran” Yevgeny Sidorov were arrested, and in 2015 sentenced to three years in prison for organizing a mercenary military structure, which at that time was punishable in Russia.

Among the mercenaries of the “Slavic Corps”, or more precisely of “Moran”, is Dmitry Utkin with the call sign “Wagner”. He is a former GRU special forces with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and his nickname is because of his attachment to the ideology and aesthetics of the Third Reich.

After his failed Syrian mission, Utkin and other fighters of the Slavic Corps did not remain unemployed for long – in February 2014 they were detected in Crimea . A year later, the independent Wagner detachment was formed from the core of the Slavic Corps, which fought on the side of the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. In 2016, a significant part of the unit was relocated to Syria.

PMC Wagner does not have any legal registration and is believed to have been funded and organized by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, close to Putin. In 2016, Dmitry Utkin was awarded the Order of Prowess and took a picture with Putin. In 2017, he became General Director of Prigozhin’s restaurant company Concord Management and Consulting.

Wagner, Dmitry Utkin and Valery Prigozhin have been sanctioned by the US and the EU. The unit is currently active in the war in Ukraine, with its mercenaries associated with atrocities in Bucha and other settlements around Kiev before the withdrawal of the Russian army.

Bulcommerce CS did not respond to our inquiry what deliveries they had to make to Moran Security Group. Moran also did not respond to emailed questions.

The very fact that a Bulgarian arms company with a Russian connection was a counterparty to this scandalous Russian structure in the period after the events in Ukraine in 2014 raises questions. And the authorities and law enforcement agencies should explain why this intermediary was chosen for the current deliveries to Ukraine, which are not officially there, but do not arrive on time.

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This post is also available in: Български (Bulgarian)