A company linked to one of Putin’s cronies is transferring goods from occupied Ukrainian territories to enterprises in Belarus

Florans — for Belarus

In 2024, Belarusian enterprises received a total of 674 railcar loads of goods purchased from Ukraine’s occupied regions. More than 40% of these were delivered in the final quarter of the year. BIC journalists learned about this from documents obtained by our partners at the Community of Railway Workers of Belarus initiative. Russian OOO Florans (Florans LLC)  acted as the freight forwarder. 

The company used to forward metal and mineral raw materials. However, in 2024, a new raw material was introduced: anthracite. In the final quarter of the year, a total of nine railcars carrying this specific coal variety were delivered to the AAT Skidzelski Tsukrovy Kambinat  (Skidelsky Sugar Plant JSC).

Although at a much lower rate, the transportation of goods from Ukraine’s occupied territories to Belarus continues. According to information from the Community of Railway Workers of Belarus, Belarusian enterprises received 30 freight cars of cargo through the intermediary company Florans in the first quarter of 2025. TDA Metalurhichnaya Kampaniya Prambudmetal (Metallurgical Сompany Prambudmetal Private company with additional liability) received 14 of these, containing various steel products. ZAT AZTM (Osipovichi Transport Engineering Plant CJSC) received seven cars of sheet steel, and the same number of carloads of foundry coke were delivered to AAT Homelbudmateryialy (Gomelstroymaterialy OJSC). 

Delivery routes

According to information from the Community of Railway Workers of Belarus, the logistics chain operates as follows: cargo is transported by rail from occupied regions of Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson to Russia. From there, it is delivered to Belarus. Florans acts as the organiser of transportation on the Russian section of the route and further to the Belarusian border, after which Belarusian freight forwarders take over.

The BIC has uncovered additional details about this scheme. In February this year, around 70 tonnes of metal products left Yenakiieve, located in the occupied part of Donetsk Region, for the Stsiapianka railway station near Minsk. The recipient was the company TDA Metalurhichnaya Kampaniya Prambudmetal (Metallurgical Сompany Prambudmetal Private company with additional liability), and TAA AvantRail (Avantrail LLC) served as the freight forwarder on Belarusian territory.

We also discovered the origin of some of the goods. Last year, the OOO Donetskiy Zavod Kislotoupornykh Materialov (Donetsk Acid-Resistant Materials Plant LLC) shipped the goods. The company sent two consignments of 69 tonnes of diabase powder each to the private enterprise UP Spetskhimkamplekt (Spetskhimkomplekt PUE), registered in the Minsk Region.

The leading Belarusian factories that consume goods entering via Florans include the automobile manufacturing giant AAT BelAZ (full name — BELAZ OJSC — Management Company of Holding "BELAZ-HOLDING"), the Osipovichi Transport Engineering Plant and the Minsk-based construction materials producer AAT Keramin (Keramin OJSC). 

Florans with and without Medvedchuk

At the end of 2023, the project Sistema was the first to report on the connection between Florans and Viktor Medvedchuk. Journalists discovered that in occupied Donbas, the little-known company had replaced the previous freight carrier associated with oligarch Serhiy Kurchenko and had become the leading logistics operator. 

That same year, the Russian government announced the possibility of using Florans as a carrier for railway freight to the occupied territories of Ukraine. The company itself was not mentioned in the official decision, but the contact details of the proposed carrier matched those published on the Florans website.

Our colleagues from Slidstvo.Info and KibOrg discovered that in 2023, the company exported Ukrainian grain and, throughout 2024, serviced the Crimean titanium business, which, after the annexation, transferred from oligarch Dmytro Firtash to Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, close associates of Vladimir Putin.

Medvedchuk is also closely connected to the Russian president. Putin is the godfather of his daughter Daria. The godmother is Svetlana Medvedeva, wife of Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. In Ukraine, Medvedchuk is accused of high treason and violating the laws of war. He was detained in April 2022 and handed over to Russia in September of that year as part of a large-scale prisoner exchange. In May 2021, journalists revealed that Viktor Medvedchuk’s company was cooperating with firms linked to one of Aleksandr Lukashenko’s “moneybags” — Mikalai Varabei.

At the beginning of 2025, Florans underwent structural changes. According to the Russian business register, the company AO Terminal (Terminal JSC) ceased to be its co-owner in January. [*]  It was through Terminal that Florans had been linked to Medvedchuk from August 2023 until January this year. The new owner is AO Aliot (Aliot JSC), a company owned by Timur Satdarov. [*]  Before acquiring the large international transport company, Satdarov ran a small business in Russia selling artisanal canned goods. As of the time of publication, no connection between him and Medvedchuk had been established. 

How does it break the law?

An occupying country does not have the right to export products or resources from occupied territory. Such actions may be regarded as looting. A similar provision can be found in Article 55 of the Hague Convention:

“The occupying State shall be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied territory. It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct”.

The BIC has conducted several investigations into how Russian companies export products from occupied Ukrainian territories to Belarus, including rapeseed and sunflower seeds.