The European Union finds itself in a familiar posture when it comes to Russian sanctions: waiting. This time, the holdup centers on an Irish investigation into alumina exports from the Aughinish refinery, Europe’s largest, which has been quietly funneling hundreds of thousands of tonnes of raw material to Russian-owned smelters while the war in Ukraine grinds on.
The EU has confirmed it won’t make any decisions on sanctioning alumina trade until Ireland’s probe wraps up. Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin has indicated the findings are expected soon. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for his part, has pushed for those results to be published quickly.
The numbers paint a damning picture
The Aughinish Alumina refinery shipped roughly 540,497 tonnes of alumina valued at over $307.85 million to three entities owned by Rusal, Russia’s aluminum giant, between April 2024 and March 2025.
Russia’s share of Aughinish’s alumina exports climbed from 23% in 2020 to 68% in 2024. The investigation was triggered in large part by reporting from OCCRP, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Civil society groups and Ukrainian officials have alleged that some of this alumina has reached entities involved in military production.
