The international company Yukon produces thermal imagers and other dual-purpose optics and supplies them to Russia, from where these devices are sent to war in Ukraine, the Scanner Project found out in a joint investigation with the Lithuanian television and radio company LRT . At the same time, the company officially declares that it supports Ukraine, does not supply goods to Russia and to war zones.
The head office of the company is registered in Lithuania. 64% of the company belonged to Belarusian Alexander Olshevsky. The remaining 36% are registered with the company's management. The history of the company began in 1991. The first products were observation tubes in a wooden case, and the initial number of employees at the enterprise was eight people. Then the company's production grew and workshops were built for the manufacture of thermal imagers and optical sights. The Yukon company, in addition to production in Belarus, has subsidiaries in Latvia, Great Britain, Poland and Ukraine. There is also a division in China that manufactures binoculars. In addition, Yukon owns a company in Russia, the Smolensk Mezon-A.
On February 1, TASS reported that the head of North Ossetia, Sergei Menyailo, visited one of the units of the 19th motorized rifle division and handed them Pulsar thermal imagers and night vision devices manufactured by Yukon. The Yukon company itself claims that even at the beginning of the war it condemned military aggression against Ukraine and stopped selling its products in Russia and Belarus, and also does not supply them to the war zones. The company emphasizes that it produces only civilian products. However, the use of Pulsar thermal imagers in the war zone is written, in particular, by Z-channels.
The journalists came to the conclusion that Yukon knows that their products are used not only by hunters. In particular, they cite the report of British investigators who found six Yukon thermal cameras in the hands of the Taliban.
The Scanner project also cites a post by war criminal Igor Girkin (Strelkov) from 2014, who thanks the Pulsar thermal imagers supplied to him. At the same time, in 2014, Yukon created a branch in Ukraine, where their products are also in demand.
After the start of the full-scale invasion, dozens of reports about fees for thermal imagers were published in Russian Z-channels and groups. Moreover, it was Pulsar thermal imagers that were purchased. One of the pro-Russian Telegram channels Fighterbomber emphasized that the pulsar thermal imagers were made in Russia.
According to investigators, Yukon sells thermal imagers and other optics through its Russian subsidiary Mezon-A. Last year, the company sold goods worth 417 million rubles. Of these, 300 million were withdrawn under a loan agreement to the Belarusian division. The largest customer of goods in Russia is the e-commerce center. Mezon-A supplied him with goods worth 160 million rubles. They have been supplying optical instruments for the Russian police, the foreign intelligence service, the FSB and the defense plant for many years.