The German company believes that a Rostec subsidiary had no right to install turbogenerators on the Crimean Peninsula.

On July 11, 2017, the German concern Siemens Aktiengesellschaft has filed in the Moscow Arbitration Court a claim against Technopromexport (TPE), the engineering subsidiary of Rostec, relative to installing a gas turbine in the Crimea.

Siemens’ press representative Wolfram Trost stated that the claim is directed against those who bear responsibility for the unauthorized shipment of the turbines.

One day earlier, on July 10, Siemens threatened Technopromexport with a criminal prosecution for the delivery of the turbines to the Crimea. Siemens stated that it obtained information that two of the four turbines that Siemens made for a Taman Peninsula power plant ended up in Crimea, against the commitments made to the German company.

According to Reuters, Siemens’ turbines were delivered to the Crimea by Interavtomatika, a company in which the German engineering firm itself holds a 45.7-percent stake. Siemens stated that it will cease future cooperation with Interavtomatika. Supplying the equipment to the peninsula violates the sanctions against Russia imposed in 2014 by the European Union.

The German ambassador to Russia Ruediger von Fritsch said that if Siemens’ turbines in fact have been delivered to Crimea, the company’s contract with the Russian side would be seriously breached.

A European Commission representative said that the E.C. is in contact with the competent authorities in Germany regarding the possible delivery of the Siemens turbines to the Crimea. He noted that the enforcement of the restrictive measures imposed by the E.U. is up to the individual member countries.

Technopromexport*commissioned Siemens Gas Turbines Technologies, a Russian joint venture of Siemens and Power Machines, to manufacture four turbines for a thermal power plant in Taman. However, the construction of the Tamani plant hasn’t begun yet. Technopromexport has put turbines up for sale in September 2016. While it was not disclosed at the time who actually bought the turbines, the winner of the auction was to ensure that the equipment would not be used in power plants that have a direct connection to the Crimea’s power grid.

Technopromexport is now building stations in the Crimea. Specifically, the company is constructing a two-line steam and gas installation with the capacity of 235 MW per line in Sevastopol’s Balaklava district. Another station of the same capacity is being built near Simferopol. On July 6, the company announced that it had purchased four sets of gas turbine units for the Crimean power plants on the secondary market. Technopromexport claims that it upgraded the equipment. “Indeed, Russian turbines assembled by Russian companies are actually being installed in the Crimea,” the press secretary of Russia’s President Dmitry Peskov said.

The Minister of Industry Denis Manturov confirmed that the power plants in the Crimea will use Russian-made turbines with foreign elements. “As for the turbines that will be located in the Crimea, we have said more than once that they will use Russian technology. We assured our colleagues that it will be a Russian-made turbine that would use some foreign-produced elements. It will, nonetheless, have a Russian certificate,” the Russian official said.

The United States and the European Union imposed sanctions against Crimea over its reunification with Russia in 2014. After reunification with Russia, Crimea faced electricity problems because nearly all of its power came from Ukraine. In November 2015, the peninsula declared a state of emergency, as four Ukrainian power lines providing electricity to the region were blown up. In response, Russian contractors built a power bridge under the Kerch Strait to deliver electricity from Russia.