JSC "Grodno Azot" (TAA Hrodna Azot), a chemical industry giant, has lost the opportunity to earn money from supplying the EU. A state-owned enterprise’s internal document indicates that direct export to the European Union was the only profitable trade line. Alternative supply routes to Russia and non-CIS countries resulted in losses.
Following the publication of a series of BIC investigations into schemes to circumvent European sanctions, Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland halted the delivery of banned Belarusian nitrogen fertilisers. Our articles received widespread media coverage in these countries (Gazeta Prawna, Money.pl, Lsm.lv, and Puaro.lv). The Belarus Investigative Centre's advocacy partners from GACC — a joint initiative of OCCRP and Transparency International that combines investigative journalism and citizen activism to accelerate the fight against corruption — achieved a coordinated shutdown of shipments and prepared a legal justification for these blockages.
According to Eurostat, Lithuania has stopped regular deliveries since May 2023 — two months after the publication of our investigation, "How Belarusian fertiliser company get banned nitrogen into Europe through straw companies".
Following the publication of the BIC article “How Lukashenko’s cronies make money from the state-owned giant Grodno Azot” in July 2025, Poland imposed sanctions against the individuals and entities featured in the story. On August 7, TAA GrandGranit (a limited liability company as defined by the law of Belarus) was blacklisted. On October 9, the Polish company TST PL and its beneficiary, Armen Harutyunyan, were added to the list.
Latvia suspended imports in August of this year after the publication of the June 22, 2025, investigation titled "Sanctions evasion routes switch to Latvia as Poland tightens control". Four months later, the country's State Revenue Service (VID) confirmed that no shipments of the following two products occurred in August and September: "urea, whether or not in aqueous solution" (code 310210) and "mixtures of urea and ammonium nitrate in aqueous or ammoniacal solution" (code 31028000).
In December 2021, the EU imposed sanctions on Grodno Azot for its role in repressing workers involved in the 2020 protests. To circumvent the ban and continue exports, the plant developed a scheme with the KUP “Hrikom” (municipal unitary enterprise as defined by the law of Belarus). Even after the BIC exposed it, other firms posing as independent nitrogen fertiliser producers continued to supply it. Grodno Azot's annual exports of sanctioned products to the European market totalled $60 million.
