After 24 February 2022, Russia sharply increased the production of artillery ammunition. A critical link in this chain is cotton cellulose — the raw material for nitrocellulose, which is used to produce smokeless powders. The lion’s share of this raw material is supplied by Uzbekistan, and its deliveries have only grown since the start of the full-scale war. In 2023, 99.47% of the cotton cellulose imported by Russia came from Uzbekistan — more than double the 2022 figure and six times higher than in 2021 — and these deliveries have increased further in 2024.
Moreover, Uzbek exporters carried out direct shipments to state-owned gunpowder plants in Kazan, Perm and Tambov, bypassing intermediaries. As a result, Uzbek nitrocellulose has become crucial for Russia’s military–industrial complex. While Uzbekistan makes some effort to conceal at least the volumes of such deliveries, Russia is entirely transparent: procurement documents clearly state that the supplies are carried out under the State Defence Order for the needs of the “Rostec” corporation. In other words, the cotton cellulose sold by Uzbekistan to Russia is not intended for any peaceful purpose, and describing it as a dual-use good makes no sense — it is from the outset destined solely for ammunition production.
Tashkent hides these supplies because, although cotton cellulose is not “weaponry” in the narrow sense, it is a basic precursor for producing nitrocellulose and subsequently powders and explosives. This is why, due to the risk of military use, the EU placed it and related items under export control in summer 2023. The 18th EU sanctions package (adopted on 18–19 July 2025) sharply increased the risks for the entire “chemical” range applicable to propellants: the list of controlled goods/technologies for Russia’s defence industry was expanded, and a “catch-all” mechanism was introduced — national authorities can require an export licence if there is suspicion that the final destination is Russia.
Additionally, under the 18th sanctions package against Russia, a full transaction ban was imposed on 22 Russian banks (effective from 9 August 2025), and the threshold for imposing transaction bans on financial institutions in third countries was significantly lowered. This is precisely what worries Tashkent. The Uzbek leadership appears unmoved by the fact that selling cotton cellulose to Russia enables the production of shells that kill Ukrainians; what concerns them deeply is the risk of losing payment flows.
For example, under recent contracts, the Uzbek company Fargona Kimyo Zavodi planned to deliver 1,800 tonnes of cotton cellulose by the end of 2025 at a total value of $4.3 million (about $2,400 per tonne) through the Moscow-based Fabrika Vaty 24, for the needs of one of Russia’s largest military plants — the Solikamsk “Ural” Plant JSC, sanctioned by the United States. Due to these sanctions, the plant requires Russian buyers not only to pay 100% in advance for its 2025 needs but also a 30% advance for 2026. Uzbekistan’s reasoning is simple but revealing: they fear that the 18th and 19th EU sanctions packages will make such transactions impossible, so they must be completed before the sanctions take effect.
In this respect, their concerns are well-founded. Banks in China, Turkey and the UAE are already delaying or refusing payments to Russian counterparties due to the risk of secondary sanctions. There is growing demand for full verification packages (end user, intended use), and alternative routes such as “SPFS/regional clearings/crypto” are themselves becoming targets for regulators. For Uzbek financial institutions, this means that any payment chain in which gunpowder cellulose destined for Russian defence plants appears is already within the zone of sanctions toxicity. That is all clear; the only unclear part is why — with total deliveries paid for by Russia amounting to $10–15 million — Uzbekistan would risk secondary sanctions and, frankly, lose its moral compass by profiting from “blood money”.
According to investigations by OCCRP and partners, EU competent authorities have already “almost arrived” at Uzbekistan’s door. They recorded direct shipments by Uzbek companies Fergana Chemical Plant and Raw Materials Cellulose to the Kazan, Perm and Tambov gunpowder plants in 2022–2023, specifically for military purposes. At present, almost nothing has changed: publicly available materials still show Uzbek companies supplying raw materials for powder production to Russian enterprises within the Spetskhimiya corporate structure, directly shipping to Kazan, Perm and Tambov gunpowder plants. The Russians make no effort to conceal this — indeed, in this way Uzbekistan becomes “theirs”, considered complicit in grey supply schemes. Moscow needs this; why Uzbekistan does, especially for a mere few tens of millions of dollars, is unclear — as is whether Tashkent has an answer to this question.
Moreover, things will only get harder from here. The new European regime simultaneously narrows financial corridors and squeezes trade loopholes for propellants, producing a synergistic effect: it becomes harder to pay, ship and insure. In other words, even if a specific goods code is not on the blacklist, the combination of financial, logistical and catch-all measures makes such deliveries almost impossible through the civilised financial system. Uzbekistan thus risks losing correspondent relationships in the global clearing infrastructure due to its cooperation with Russian defence legal entities.
In essence, Tashkent has only one way to avoid major trouble: to announce a public moratorium on supplying cellulose/nitrocellulose to Russian gunpowder plants and to conduct joint inspections with the EU/US in response to specific requests. For now, however, it has chosen “advance payment for 2026”, knowingly risking exclusion from dollar/euro infrastructure for its financial sector.
The “Uzbekistan – Russian gunpowder plants” case perfectly illustrates how a seemingly neutral good fuels military production — and how the sanctions architecture evolves in response. The EU’s 18th package and the US secondary sanctions regime for banks weave trade, financial and enforcement tools into a single framework: where the end user is Russia’s military–industrial complex, almost no “grey” zones remain. For Tashkent, it is a choice between short-term profit from these supplies and long-term access to global finance; for European and US regulators, the choice is clear. The ultimate outcome is hard to predict, but one thing is certain — this story “stinks to high heaven”. The practical conclusion is simple: for the entire “cellulose – nitrocellulose – gunpowder” chain, a presumption of military end use should be introduced, alongside mandatory export licensing and a joint (EU–US–Central Asia) end-user registry with full batch and beneficiary traceability. Only then will payments, insurance and logistics cease to function as tools for sanctions evasion — otherwise, “grey zones” will continue to grow back wherever the market sees quick money.