A Belgian company has for years supplied technology to Russia that could be used to develop military equipment, despite export restrictions.
Capvidia, a company based in the Flemish city of Leuven, has supplied machine parts to a company in Moscow with links to military companies, including missile manufacturers, for more than 20 years, De Standaard reported on Saturday. This is technology that Russia could use to develop military equipment capable of causing death and destruction in Ukraine.
The report by the Belgian newspaper illustrates how Western companies, despite various export restrictions, have contributed to the military-industrial complex to which Putin’s fate has been tied since the war in Ukraine began.
One such company is Capvidia, founded in the 1990s by a Pole, and later a Russian joined the helm of the company. It specialises in technology to measure and digitally image objects three-dimensionally. This can be used in completely innocuous ways, for example in the design of cars or orthopaedic equipment. But the technology is also used to design the wings of a fighter jet, the fins on a rocket or the hull of a submarine.
Capvidia offers software, FlowVision, that displays how air or water flows along surfaces in detail. The company developed that software together with a Russian sister company named Capvidia Tesis.
Sending hundreds of machine parts
Through this link, Flowvision ended up with companies involved in the Kremlin's war industry, including the Corporation for Tactical Missiles. It is notorious for its Kinzhal missiles, which Russia uses to attack Ukrainian energy installations and other targets.
Flowvision is now well-embedded: the Russian government even included it in its official list of recommended software.
Further research from ImportGenius, a company tracking trade to Russia, indicates that Capvidia has also sent hundreds of machine parts to Russia over the past decade.
In response, Capvidia states that it has always adhered to all regulations. Capvidia claims it has cut all business ties with Tesis since 2022 and appears to be refocusing on the Western market.
