Ireland would work with the European Commission to see if there was some way to achieve the “objective” of making sure Irish alumina exports were not feeding the Russian war machine, without necessarily sanctioning the product, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said. The Government’s investigation into Aughinish Alumina did not find “concrete or definitive” evidence the Irish plant was supplying the Russian military, but equally could not rule that scenario out, Martin said. Speaking in Kyiv beside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Martin said: “We do not want material from Aughinish going to Russia”. “The investigation has not found concrete or definitive evidence linking the alumina to a weapons manufacturer in Russia. That said, neither has it found definitive evidence that alumina may not be going to weapons manufacturers, so it’s difficult,” the Taoiseach told a joint press conference during a visit to the Ukrainian capital.Zelenskiy said the most important thing was that the supply of alumina was not reaching Russia. The investigation by the Department of Enterprise into Aughinish Alumina’s exports to Russia was “almost complete”, Martin said.The plant, which is owned by Russian metals giant Rusal, had been “adamant” that raw material it produced was not going to arms manufacturers. “It’s very difficult to prove that it’s not, but it’s also very difficult to prove that it is,” Martin told reporters in Kyiv. The Government will shortly share the outcome of its inquiry with the commission, the EU’s executive body that proposes and oversees the bloc’s regime of economic sanctions targeting Russia. “This is both an Irish issue and a European issue,” Martin said.From the Shannon to Siberia: How alumina from a Limerick refinery enters Russia’s weapons supply chainAughinish Alumina in Co Limerick supplies vast amounts of raw materials to Russian aluminium smelters, according to an investigation by The Irish Times and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).Read the full investigation here.The investigation was opened following reporting by The Irish Times, in co-operation with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, that drew on leaked documents to detail how Aughinish Alumina is shipping vast amounts of alumina to smelters in Russia, where it is then sold to a company supplying aluminium to Russian arms and missile manufacturers.An aluminium smelting facility in Dunkirk, France, that supplied European industry was “heavily dependent” on the Irish plant, to the extent it received 70 per cent of its alumina from Aughinish, Martin said. The important role played by the Co Limerick refinery in the wider European supply chain had to be a factor taken into account in any future EU decision on sanctions, he said. Zelenskiy said it remained his preference that alumina exports to Russia were subject to EU level sanctions, which would cut off the supply of the material to Moscow. “We support sanctioning of the relevant production … the number one task that we have, the issue is that this does not reach Russia, that this does not help weapons production,” he said. The Ukrainian president hosted Martin in his residence, Mariinskiy Palace, where the Taoiseach briefed him on the findings of the Aughinish investigation during a wide-ranging meeting the two leaders had. Speaking in a joint press conference afterwards, Martin said that the commission had to date never pitched sanctions on alumina. “There may be other approaches we could take to achieve the objective of the material not going to Russia, but that’s complex. We understand the economics of this now much better than perhaps we did before the investigation,” he said.