Lego toys manufactured in the Czech Republic continue to enter Russia through European trading companies more than two years after the Danish group halted direct sales, according to customs data cited in a new investigation by the Czech outlet Page Not Found and reporting by the Kyiv Independent.
The probe found that products labeled “Lego Production Kladno”—a reference to the Danish company’s large manufacturing hub in Kladno, which produces up to 40% of Lego’s global output—were recorded in Russian customs filings as recently as February 2025, according to the Ukrainian news outlet.
Lego said it stopped supplying Russia in March 2022 following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
One Dutch firm, HTS Europe BV, controlled by Dutch national and Moscow resident Weynand Gerins, accounted for roughly 15% of Czech-origin Lego shipments into Russia, Page Not Found reported.
The company is among a network of private intermediaries registered outside Russia that continue moving consumer goods into the federation without manufacturers’ consent.
While official Lego stores closed in 2022, Russian retailer IRG has opened a lookalike chain called World of Cubes, which mimics Lego’s color palette and merchandising but operates without the consent of the Danish brand, according to the report.
Moscow’s legal framework enables the trade. In June 2022, President Vladimir Putin enacted a “parallel imports” law that allows the import of goods without the copyright holder’s permission.
The rule has underpinned gray-market routes for a wide range of Western products and, according to prior Kyiv Independent investigations, has also been used to source critical foreign components for Russian weapons via chains of intermediary companies.
Read more at the Kyiv Independent