‘War sponsors’: Indian entity among 26 blacklisted by Ukraine for ‘abetting Russian aggression’

Apr 09, 2024

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New Delhi: An Indian entity has figured in a blacklist brought out by Ukraine against what Kyiv claims to be of “individuals and companies that are abetting Russia’s open aggression” against its citizens.

NBC Bearings, a part of C.K Birla Group, figures in the list brought out by Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP).

The list contains 26 entities primarily from Europe, the US and China.

NBC Bearings makes it onto the list along with five individuals, all senior executives at the company.

National Engineering Industries Limited, the company which makes NBC Bearings, declined to comment on the Ukraine’s listing, but told ThePrint all its exports “are as per the guidelines established by the Government of India”.

“Apart from its business in India, it has a long history of exporting its products to more than 30 countries across five continents for various applications like automotive, railways, industrial segments and other non-military applications,” the company said.

The Ukrainian black list may be discussed by the European Union’s (EU) foreign affairs ministers, Politico reported.

War & Sanctions, a public database supported by the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, makes, “public the lists of individuals and companies that are abetting Russia’s open aggression against Ukraine”.

The database includes a listing of companies that continue to trade with Russia, calling them as “International Sponsors of War”. These companies or entities, according to the portal, provide “the public and private sector with goods and services of critical purpose”.

The list reports that bearings valued at roughly $12.3 million were exported during the year 2022-23 by NBC Bearings to Russia. Apart from NBC Bearings, senior executives — Rohit Saboo (President & CEO), Sanjeev Taparia (Sales & Marketing Director), Gourav Chaturvedi (CFO), Shailesh Patni (Head of Internal Sales) and Rajan Jain (COO) — were named in the Ukraine individual blacklist submitted to the EU.

NBC Bearings, a brand of bearings manufactured by the National Engineering Industries (NEI) Ltd, was established in 1946. A part of the $2.4 billion C.K. Birla Group, NEI claims to be India’s largest manufacturer and exporter of bearings, with a production of over 200 million bearings a year.

Headquartered in Jaipur, NEI has five manufacturing plants in Newai, Manesar, Vadodara and Jaipur. Its nearly 2,300-plus variants of bearings are applied across automotives, railways, aerospace and industrial sectors and are exported to over 30 countries, according to the company website.

Also Read: War, payment issues impact military supplies to India from Russia & Ukraine. IAF worst hit

Bearings are a critical component in the production of all moving vehicles, from tanks to aircrafts and even ships and missiles. More importantly, bearings are integral to the civilian industry as, “Russia’s rail-dependent economy finds the production and repair of trains directly impaired,” reported a recent study by the Centre for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS).

The study identified the paucity of high-quality bearings produced by Western companies as a critical vulnerability for the Kremlin.

“In 2020, for instance, Russia imported over $419 million worth of ball bearings, around 55 per cent of which originated in Europe and North America,” it stated. “Following the start of the invasion, major western producers of bearings exited Russia and ended their sales there.”

Forbes reported that the shortage of ball bearings led to Russia’s main factories for building new tanks and restoring old ones, Uralvagonzavod and Omsktransmash, to temporarily freeze production, in the first weeks after the invasion of Ukraine.

India’s value of exports of ball bearings and other bearings grew from roughly $4.05 million in 2016 to $29.65 million in 2023, according to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The value of exports grew by almost 108 per cent from 2022 to 2023, as Russia sought new suppliers of bearings as the western companies exited the Russian market.

While China remains the largest exporter of ball bearings to Russia in 2022 as per the UN Comtrade Database, India grew from the 10th largest exporter to the 4th position in 2022. China’s exports grew from $41.9 million in 2021 to $104.3 million in 2022. Germany, which was the largest exporter of bearings to Russia in 2021 with roughly $99.5 million worth of exports, fell to the 3rd position in 2022 with exports worth $28.5 million.

In January 2022, a month before the start of the invasion, Germany was the largest exporter of bearings to Russia according to the UN Comtrade Database. India was the 6th largest exporter to Russia in January 2022. By December 2022, India was the 2nd largest exporter of bearings to Russia.

(Edited by Tony Rai)

Also Read: How ‘graveyard’ of Russian tanks in Ukraine is upending armour doctrines worldwide & for India

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