The Ukrainian Embassy in Ireland has issued a statement expressing "serious concern" regarding the continued export of alumina from Ireland to Russia, despite the Government saying it has launched an investigation related to such exports.
The Aughinish Alumina plant in Limerick is Europe's largest alumina refinery and exports between 40% and 80% of its material directly to Russia.
Alumina is extracted from bauxite at the plant, and then exported where it is used to produce aluminum.
In a statement, the Ukrainian Embassy said the alumina is "extensively used by Russia’s military-industrial complex."
It also raised questions about a ramp-up in exports from the plant to Russia in the time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
"According to trade data, this troubling trade flow has increased significantly, with exports rising from €196 million in 2021 to €318 million in 2025, positioning the Russian Federation as the largest destination for Irish alumina exports and surpassing traditional European partners," the embassy said.
"These figures raise serious concerns," the statement added, as "aluminium is used in the manufacture of a wide range of Russian military systems, including Iskander-M ballistic missiles, Tsirkon hypersonic missiles, Kh-101 and Kalibr cruise missiles, as well as Shahed-136/Geran-2 attacks unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)."
Late last week, the European Commission decided against including the plant in a new round of sanctions.
This came despite calls for inclusion in the new sanctions package from almost 40 MEPs, including European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno.
The Italian MEP wrote to the Commission in recent weeks saying it was "unacceptable that, while the EU funds Ukraine's defence, a Russian-owned company operates undisturbed within a member state, supplying the Kremlin’s military industry."
Read more: EU Commission holds off on sanctioning Aughinish Alumina
The Aughinish plant was bought in 2007 by the Russian conglomerate, Rusal, one of the largest aluminium companies in the world.
Rusal was founded by the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who has been a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin for decades, and has himself been the target of repeated Western sanctions.
The company that operates the plant says it is in "strict compliance with all applicable European Union laws, including sanctions, export control measures and trade regulations" and that it has implemented "robust sanctions compliance and due diligence framework covering its entire supply chain."
It employs 475 staff, while several hundred other jobs are supported indirectly by the continued operation.
"The department has to be allowed to do its review and its investigation" - Minister Niall Collins
Speaking on RTÉ's Prime Time, Minister of State Niall Collins defended the Government’s approach to the issue.
He said a recently commissioned Department of Enterprise review examining concerns about the use of alumina from the plant in Russia’s military production processes would be completed and furnished to the European Commission.
He also criticised media reporting around the issue, which he described as coming from "a number of news agencies, some of them who you would describe as not trusted or unverified websites and news agencies."
This appeared in reference to reporting based on trade data and leaked documents led by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) - a collective of media outlets, which includes The Irish Times - published in recent weeks.
The OCCRP is a long-established group known for publishing hard hitting stories based on large tranches of financial and corporate data.
It has been involved in the publication of many award-winning investigations in recent decades, most focused on company data, corruption in Russia or Eastern Europe, or off-shore tax entities.
The OCCRP investigation concluded that alumina exported from the Aughinish Alumina plant "is processed into aluminum and sold to clients that include a Moscow-based trader which has supplied hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of aluminum to Russian arms manufacturers."
"These arms manufacturers include more than 40 firms that have been sanctioned by the EU, and whose weapons have killed thousands of civilians and caused widespread damage in Ukraine," it said.
Read more: Collateral damage: Aughinish Alumina, EU sanctions and Russian missiles
In response to questions about such reports, Minister Collins said: "There's a shared responsibility on everybody to verify what they're saying and what they're reporting."
Asked how the Government would verify details about the use of alumina exported to Russia from Ireland during its own review, Minister Collins said: "The Department of Enterprise, that is their job to do, and I think we need to allow them the space to do it."
"The important point is the Department has to be allowed to do its review and its investigation, and the European Union as a collective 27, will then make an informed decision based on the facts," he said.
"What the Government is about is conducting an investigation, liaising with the company, liaising with the European Commission," he added.
Earlier on Tuesday, Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke revealed on RTÉ's Morning Ireland that statistics about alumina exports from the plant published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) were now being examined for accuracy.
He said the inaccurate data was supplied to CSO by the company which operates the plant, and that that was now "being rectified."
The CSO had received data that said more than 80% of the material exported from Aughinish Alumina was sent to Russia.
Minister Burke said his understanding was that the company’s updated figure is closer to 45%.
