Two Uzbek companies reportedly feature on a draft European Union sanctions document because they supply cotton pulp to Russian gunpowder plants.

The draft outlines how Fargona Kimyo Zavodi LLC and Raw Materials Cellulose LLC "support Russia's military and industrial complex by being involved in the supply of military technology and equipment," according to a report from RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service, which has seen the document.

The draft is also said to state that the cotton pulp deliveries go to Russian gunpowder plants in Kazan, Perm and Tambov.

Rustam Rakhimdzhanovich Muminov, an Uzbek, Tashkent-born businessman who holds Russian and UK citizenship and controls the companies, has already been sanctioned by the EU, the UK and Ukraine for supplying cotton pulp to serve Russian military production needs. However, this has not stopped the two cotton pulp producers supplying their product to Russia.

The proposed sanctions would also hit two Russian buyers of Uzbek cotton products, Dmitry Malyuta and Denis Shishkin, RFE/RL added, noting: “The EU draft describes them as owners of shares in LLC Bina Invest, through which they control companies importing cotton pulp from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan for Russian gunpowder factories. Both also own shares in LLC Aleksinskiye Kraski-Ural, which delivers goods to Russian gunpowder factories.

“The materials are used in a wide range of military products, including ammunition.”

In January last year, this publication, citing reporting from US public broadcaster PBS Newshour and an article from Talk Finance, reported how much of Russia’s war machine reportedly remains reliant on exports of cotton pulp, or cellulose, from two factories in Uzbekistan.

Muminov is closely tied to Russian military procurement, according to the Council for Economic Security of Ukraine (ESCU).

It is anticicpated that the EU's 20th sanctions package directed at Russia and entities helping the Kremlin overcome sanctions will be formally adopted by the bloc by the end of February.

In the package, Uzbekistan’s neighbour Kyrgyzstan could be hit with an unprecedented set of sanctions that would target re-exports of dual-use radio equipment and CNC machines – computer-controlled tools that cut, drill and shape materials – that are said to reach Russia via the small Central Asian country.

If implemented, the move would make Kyrgyzstan the first country to be targeted with an application of the EU's sanctions anti-circumvention instrument, introduced in 2023.