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Four more individuals and seven companies mentioned in The Insider's investigations have been hit by U.S. sanctions, according to a press release published by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on May 1.
Among them is GRU officer Viktor Gennadevich Labin, who supplied Russian arms manufacturers with European-made coordinate-measuring machines — a high-tech machine tool critical in the production of the Kremlin’s hypersonic Kinzhal missile — from his Belgium-based company. One of Labin’s sons helped him run his business, while the other organized protest actions in Europe in support of the Kremlin. Both of them — Roman Viktorovich Labin and Ruslan Viktorovich Labin — were also added to the sanctions list.
The sanctions also included four firms associated with the individuals in the investigation: Russia-based Sonatek LLC and JSC Dux, the Belgian company Groupe d'Investissement Financier, as well as the Turkish OSBORNE DIS TICARET LIMITED SIRKETI.
Another individual involved in one of The Insider’s investigations published last October — Sergei Viktorovich Pitikov — was also subject to U.S. sanctions. Pitikov heads the Machine-Building Design Bureau Corporation (KBM), which is part of High Precision Systems, a group of companies within the Rostec Corporation. KBM produces Iskander and Kinzhal missiles, both of which are used by Russian forces in their invasion of Ukraine. Pitikov,
The Russian companies Unimatik LLC and JSC Elekond, which appeared in The Insider's investigation about Western countries aiding Russia in manufacturing the Armata and Proryv (lit. “Breakthrough”) tanks, and the manufacturer of body armor for security and military personnel, NPP KLASS (featured in a May 2023 investigation into 25 European companies continuing to supply the Russian army), also fell under U.S. sanctions.
A previous round of U.S. sanctions unveiled in February featured nine companies from The Insider's investigations.