VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info continue to uncover the extensive international network of companies owned by Vadim Gurinov, a trusted business partner of Russian oligarchs close to Putin. His associates in the Avestra Group of Companies include oil trader Roman Spiridonov, who owns the Dubai-based Petroruss company, which trades Russian oil, as well as St. Petersburg businessmen Igor Berezina and Dmitry Ivanov. Each owns a 25% stake in Avestra. Finnish citizen Adam Popov, Russians Denis Panovitsyn, Dmitry Egorov, Alexey Ashikhmin (CFO of the Swedish fund Ruric AB, in which Vadim Gurinov owned 89.27% through his British Virgin Islands offshore company Icestone Invest Ltd), Andrey Romanov, Irina Zavarina, Anastasia Gorobets, Ilya Rykov (CFO of Avestra), Vladimir Belkovsky, and others help manage the network of companies. As we previously reported, the network includes dozens of companies in various countries, with the Cypriot Avestra Group Holding Ltd. as its parent company.
Vadim Gurinov also owns stakes in several Belarusian and Russian companies involved in the supply of equipment in defiance of sanctions. A number of other companies are managed by individuals associated with Avestra. For example, Denis Panovitsyn heads Global Digital Group LLC in St. Petersburg, with assets of 2.5 billion rubles. Dmitry Egorov was its founder until November 2024 (the founders are currently unknown). Egorov also heads Uran-Invest LLC. This company is registered to Artem Gurinov, his brother. Artem Gurinov and Roman Spiridonov also have a joint venture, the Voronezh company Kontur-S.
As it turns out, Gurinov also owns the Belarusian company Nitro Chemicals LLC through his Swedish fund, Ruric AB. The company was registered in 2019 under the name Avestra Bitumen Materials LLC. It was located in the Vitebsk Free Economic Zone (registered in Novopolotsk, Rizhsky Lane, Building 5A, Office 250/C-27624) and intended to produce bitumen. It is known to have a warehouse in Polotsk, and its products are exported by rail. According to Belarusian Railways, in the first nine months of 2024, Nitro Chemicals was among the top ten Belarusian exporters to Russia, with 360 tons of goods in large-capacity containers. The company's main export was hydroxylamine sulfate, with 2,683 tons shipped to Russia.
In Russia, Gurinov also owned a stake in the St. Petersburg-based Rurik Bituminous Materials LLC (liquidated in 2024): his Rurik Management owned 56.7% of the company, another 33.3% belonged to BAKORA PGS LLC (founder and director Rustam Ramazonov), and 10% belonged to Igor Berezin's Khimservis LLC (with whom Gurinov has had a long-standing conflict, which we previously reported). Ramazonov is a member of Delovaya Rossiya, where he chairs the Small Energy Committee.
Through Bakora PGS, he also owns 47.9% of ALFA BALT ENGINEERING LLC, where his senior business partner is Gurinov's Rurik Management (49.9%). Nikita Yegorovich Serzhantov and Petr Evgenievich Pashchenko each own 1%. During the war, ABI quadrupled its revenue, from 1.1 billion rubles in 2022 to 4.4 billion by the end of 2024.
This company owns a production facility in St. Petersburg and assembles diesel and gas piston power plants for Novatek, Rosneft, Rosseti, and data centers. On its website, ABI explicitly states that it parallel imports components from Europe through "its own warehouses in friendly countries"—specifically, products from such well-known manufacturers as Cummins (USA), Jenbacher (Austria), and MWM (Germany). In July, on Instagram, which is banned in Russia, the company boasted about receiving a 2.5 MW gas piston power plant from the German manufacturer MTU. This equipment is also directly subject to sanctions. According to customs records, ABI itself imports products from China, while European equipment may be supplied through third countries and Chinese suppliers.
In 2024, ABI announced the creation of a joint venture with the Chinese company Yuchai for the assembly and subsequent production of diesel engines in the Leningrad Region.
The AB group of companies also includes Alfa-Balt Service, Alfa-Balt Avtomatika, and Alfa-Balt Marine.
AB Marine LLC, with founders Nikita Serzhantov (60%) and Ramazonov's Bakara PGS, was registered in St. Petersburg in 2023. It supplies power equipment (including foreign-made) for ships. This company is known to have supplied electrical equipment for seven electric pleasure boats of the "Moscow 2.0" project under construction at the Emperium shipyard. AB Marine posted revenue of 81 million rubles last year. Nikita Serzhantov's father, Yegor Serzhantov, is a specialist in marine vessel testing and certification and the director of Engineering Expert Center LLC, registered in 2024 and founded by the Federal Autonomous Institution "RUSSIAN MARITIME REGISTER OF SHIPPING."
Serzhantov Sr. is also an advisor to the CEO of ALFA BALT ENGINEERING. Rustam Ramazonov's NIRING.
Bakara PGS, which before the war supplied European products to Russia's largest oil and gas companies, also imports foreign equipment for AB Marine and AB Engineering. In particular, they received diesel generator sets from the Italian manufacturer Compagnia Tecnica Motori S.P.A. To save on customs duties, the units were imported as disassembled spare parts. According to customs data aggregators, in 2022, Bakara PGS imported products from the German Heinzmann Gmbh & Co Kg (which produces control systems for industrial internal combustion engines, generators, and turbines), and in 2024, diesel generator sets from the Chinese Shandong Weichai Import & Export Corporation worth $82,500, etc.
So, Vadim Gurinov is involved not only in the export of Russian oil and petroleum products, but also in the supply of high-tech equipment to Russian oligarchs in circumvention of sanctions.
