In May, the Belgian media “24 Brussels” published an interesting article devoted to the activities in Russia and other jurisdictions of the corporation “TÜV Austria”, which apparently has systemic ties to the Russian shadow fleet. The analysis by experts of our Association of materials related to the activities of this structure allowed us to establish additional important circumstances that indicate its use by the Russian military machine, including in relation to the occupied Crimea.
At the end of 2025, Gennady Voronin, one of the key architects of the modern military model of Russia’s development, died in Moscow, but his “life’s work” and “heirs” continue to be active in the global network of Russian special services and require separate analysis and coverage.
Voronin worked all his life in Soviet arms production, and made his main career in the Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry, where he met the collapse of the USSR as a deputy minister.
Among other things, under his supervision, warship control systems were formed, and since 1992 Voronin became deputy head of the Russian State Committee for Defense Industries, where he was in charge of the fleet and its control systems.
But in parallel, Voronin’s public interests began to focus on issues of certification and standardization, and after the formal completion of his managerial activities, he headed the “All-Russian Organization of Quality” (“Vserossiyskaya organizatsiya kachestva”) with its media mouthpiece “Standards and Quality” (“Standarty i Kachestvo”). Also in the orbit of his interests was the “International Association of Quality – SovAsK”, reorganized in 2001 from the “Soviet Association of Quality” (“Sovestkaya organizatziya kachestva”), which, by the way, also included the “Ukrainian Association of Quality” for a long time.
At the same time, the executive committee of the CIS Electric Power Council is located at the same Moscow address as the “SovAsK” and the “All-Russian Organization of Quality”, and Voronin himself has been the mouthpiece of such a specific structure as the “United Nations Public Awards Council” in recent years.
This “Council” had nothing to do with the UN, of course, and in fact became another attempt to build a network of Russian intelligence, under the umbrella of the “foreign representations of the Council” and its “awards.”
The attention of Russian special services to “certification and standardization” has always been particularly meticulous. It is enough to point to such tools of the Kremlin as the “Russian Maritime Register of Shipping”, the “Russian Register Association”, “RR-BelCentreCert”, “NIKIMP” and the like.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the “All-Russian Organization of Quality” and “SovAsK”, operated by Voronin and his curators from the Russian special services, became key tools of industrial espionage and influence on economic processes, and not only in the post-Soviet space. This was confirmed by Voronin’s heir and disciple, Dmitry Yartsev, who was elected, very hastily and even with a “flexible interpretation of the procedure”, as the new president of the “All-Russian Organization of Quality” in December 2025.
The newly elected president did not particularly hide that in the future the main tasks of the organization will be the formation of structures of influence of Russia in international standardization associations, the promotion of Russian intelligence agents under the guise of “Russian experts in standardization” and the bribery of key players of third countries in this area under the guise of “promoting Russian awards”.
In these areas, Yartsev really has a lot of experience, since he previously worked in Russian structures from the key marine classification society “Det Norske Veritas” (“DNV”), and the most authoritative certification organization “British Standards Institution” (“BSI”), and represented Russia in the committees of the International Organization for Standardization (“ISO”).
It is noteworthy that while working at “BSI”, Yartsev paid much attention to involving the notorious “Kaspersky Lab” in the relevant processes of “standardization and certification”. However, since 2020, Yartsev has been a co-founder of a more notable structure, namely the Moscow-based firm “TÜV Austria Standards and Compliance” (“TÜV Austria SiS”).
This structure is the Russian subsidiary of the global standardization and certification structure “TÜV Austria”, headquartered in Vienna, whose significant intensification of its work in Russia has been noticeable since 2020.
Let us add right away that the co-founders of the Moscow-based “TÜV Austria SiS” are Alexey Zanegin, Maxim Ekaterinin and Dmitry Yartsev, who are also key Russian functionaries in the field of “standardization and certification”, and have left their mark on another similar structure, namely the “Eurasian Center for Standardization”.
However, all of them, as well as the CEO of “TÜV Austria SiS” Igor Ivanov, notable only for changing his surname to Khrenov for an unknown purpose, are not such talkative heads as Yartsev, who, among other things, reported on the Austrian certification of the “Eurasian Development Bank” and on the assistance of “TÜV Austria SiS” to Russian-Indian economic cooperation.
In addition, Moscow-based “TÜV Austria SiS” announced partnerships with such structures as Vladimir Lisin’s “Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant”, “Gazprom Neft”, “Caspian Pipeline Consortium”, “Rosatom”, “Rosneft”, etc. It is worth recalling that Lisin’s structures, closely linked to the Russian shadow fleet, are still not under sanctions and operate in a number of European Union countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands, etc.
It is noteworthy that “TÜV Austria SiS”, under Yartsev’s leadership, is also actively cooperating with the same umbrella of Russian special services, “Kaspersky Lab”, which Yartsev had previously promoted to “BSI”. On this basis, in 2022, TÜV Austria announced the establishment of the “world’s first artificial intelligence certification scheme” “Trusted Artificial Intelligence”.
Such “cooperation”, among other things, allowed to ensure the operation of the “information security management” system “SberCloud” of a key Russian state institution – “Sberbank”. Similarly, “TÜV Austria SiS” certified data centers, high-speed communication channels, hardware and software at “Gazprom Neft”.
Regarding the “Caspian Pipeline Consortium”, it should be added that its last publicly described certification by “TÜV Austria SiS” took place in the fall of 2021, was carried out by up to 40 inspectors, and the process was supervised by the then head of the Austrian trade mission in Russia, Rudolf Lukawski.
Among other things, it was “TÜV Austria” that “without any comments” certified the consortium’s oil transportation and shipment processes, the work of testing laboratories, technical operational equipment, personnel management and training, transport and logistics, etc.
At the same time, “TÜV Austria SiS” actively conducts certification of Russian military structures, in particular the Federal state unitary enterprise “Priborostroitelny Zavod”, which is located in the Chelyabinsk region and specializes in the production of weapons and ammunition, and has a “representative office in the republic of Crimea”.
In 2020, “TÜV Austria SiS” certified this structure for 997.5 thousand rubles (contract 57405000428190007380000) “for compliance with the requirements of the international standard ISO/IEC 27001:2013”.
A permanent partner of “TÜV Austria SiS” is the “scientific and production enterprise” “Spetstek”, with co-owners Vladimir Iorsh Vladimir and Sergey Belov, which previously provided services for technical support of auxiliary vessels “Atomflot” (contract 55192110268170002350000 and others), and for software testing of the scientific and production association “Aurora” (contract 57802463197160005210000 and others).
“Aurora” (“Avrora”) is engaged in the creation of “combat information and control systems for surface ships, submarines, underwater vehicles, sea and river vessels of all types and classes”, “simulators for training crews of ships and vessels of various purposes, underwater vehicles”, “automated control systems for production, technological and energy facilities, transport facilities and port facilities, technological processes of oil and gas extraction, processing and transportation.”
Thus, it is obvious that the activities of Voronin’s “heirs” in the field of military shipbuilding have received significant practical development under the umbrella of “TÜV Austria SiS”.
We add that the subsidiary “Spetstek”, “Spetstek Murmansk” tax code 5190113200 certifies Russian institutions in the field of fisheries and oceanography, the same “Atomflot” and the Murmansk company “Skadar” code 5191324073, which is engaged in large-scale trade in petroleum products and has licenses for the maritime transportation of dangerous goods.
At the same time, the certification of “Skadar” was carried out jointly with the above-mentioned “Certification Association” “Russian Register”, tax number 7801319747.
“Russian Register”, which is the specified partner of “Spetstek”, is a certification structure associated with the activities of the “Russian Maritime Register of Shipping”, which is massively used in the transfer of the shadow fleet of Russia to the flag of Russia.
In addition, “Spetstek” has agreements on cooperation with such a maritime classification structure of Norway as “Det Norske Veritas”, where, as indicated above, the specified Yartsev worked, and with the illegal “Donetsk National Technical University” located in the occupied territory of Ukraine.
It was also “TÜV Austria” that for a long time supported such an international online passenger and freight transportation service as “InDriver”, which operates on the basis of a mobile application in more than 30 countries around the world.
The public beneficiary of this tool of the Russian special services is a native of Yakutsk Arsen Tomsky; in order to avoid sanctions after the large-scale aggression against Ukraine in 2022, this figure renamed this system to “InDrive”, relocated more than a thousand of its Russian employees to Cyprus and Kazakhstan, and himself lives in California under the guise of an “opponent of war”.
Actually, “TÜV Austria”, in particular “TÜV Austria Cert Gmbh” is an international group of companies that certify production facilities, institutions and enterprises for compliance with international standards, primarily ISO, and carry out relevant expert and training activities.
At the same time, this corporation is not a classification society and does not issue ship documents required by maritime conventions that would be recognized by flag administrations and used by owners and shipowners.
However, “TÜV Austria” can cooperate with such classification societies, providing them with its own expert and training capabilities in areas where there is no regulation by maritime conventionsб for example, certification of greenhouse gas emissions or individual components and assemblies, environmental auditing, etc.
In addition, certification from “TÜV Austria” covers enterprises for the extraction, processing and land transportation of petroleum products, which has a direct and significant impact on the activities of the Russian shadow fleet. Among other things, “TÜV Austria” structures provide certification services for pressure systems (Pressure Vessel Inspection Services) and infrastructure integrity (Asset Integrity Service) at these facilities.
Subsidiaries of “TÜV Austria” provide relevant services in Shanghai (“TÜV Austria Shanghai Co. Ltd.”), in Turkey (“TÜV Austria Turk B.E. ve GHLŞ”), Egypt, as well as in Poland, Romania, Belgium and other European Union countries. The subsidiary of this corporation in Baku, namely “TÜV Austria Azerbaijan LLC”, headed by Ulkar Guliyeva, is also actively engaged in certification of the oil and gas complex.
It is not surprising that almost the entire energy sector of Austria, as a key energy hub in Europe, is certified by “TÜV Austria”. At the same time, “TÜV Austria” together with the Austrian oil and gas company “OMV” (“Österreichische Mineralölverwaltung AG”) in 2020 created in Vienna an “educational center for oil and gas industry workers and managers” – “TÜV Austria Akademie GMBH”.
It is noteworthy that the long-time functionary of this center, Stefanie Kirchhof, who has repeatedly distinguished herself with the aforementioned Yartsev at various “educational events for the certification sector” in Russia, now works at the “ÖBB-Business Competence Center GmbH”, that is, the key logistics hub of the Austrian railways.
In addition to the above-described certification of the oil and gas and maritime sectors in terms of providing documentation on ISO standards to enterprises and institutions (not ships), maritime activity is observed in the activities of the Turkish structure “TÜV Austria Marine” from Bodrum (specializing in pleasure boats and yachts) and the Jordanian structure “TÜV Austria Jordan” from Amman, which offers services, including maritime certification of ships.
Also discovered is a 2021 certification from “TÜV Austria” for the Greek company “Cubic Marine Logistics” from Athens, which is the main company of this country and in general an important player in the global market for the supply of components and assemblies for the repair of seagoing vessels, including tankers; it is obvious that the repair of tankers of the shadow fleet associated with Greek owners is carried out precisely through this company, while one of the Greek managers at “TÜV Austria”, Charalampos Angeloudis, has extensive experience in the maritime industry.
At the same time, the most notable example of the participation of the described concern in the activities of the Russian oil and gas sector is the “Sila Kalite” project, in which “TÜV Austria” is a key shareholder of the relevant company, registered in 2007 in Bursa, Turkey, and its clone “Sila Industry”.
The CEO of this structure, which certifies dozens of oil and gas sector projects in Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Turkmenistan, is Yanki Ünal, the nominal owner is Halit Battal, and the company is managed by his relatives Ozgur Battal, Onur Battal, etc.
Neither “TÜV Austria” nor “Sila Kalite” currently advertise specific implemented projects, but it was possible to find out that within their framework, among other things, certification was carried out of the terminal for the production and transshipment of liquefied natural gas in the Russian port of Vysotsk on the Baltic and the corresponding gas pipeline-discharge, the recipient of the services was the Russian structure “Kriogaz-Vysotsk”.
Therefore, it is not surprising that “Sila Kalite” has a separate, non-public office in St. Petersburg, headed by the Turkish Ceren Boysan, with the working name “Lakhta Center Multi-Function Complex Project” located right in the headquarters of “Gazprom” in the skyscraper “Lakhta Center”.
Thus, the activities of “TÜV Austria” go far beyond the provision of individual commercial services to the Russian oil and gas complex. One can argue about at least a systemic symbiosis of Russian special services, Kremlin energy oligarchs and top functionaries of “TÜV Austria”; and the Russian division of this corporation is obviously completely controlled not by Viennese businessmen, but by Russian intelligence generals.
Accordingly, the activities of “TÜV Austria” require both the deepest possible control by the competent authorities of democratic countries, and a sanction response, at least in terms of the divisions and functionaries that serve the Russian economy and its militarization.
