The Angolan authorities have offered the Russian diamond mining company Alrosa a mechanism to circumvent sanctions. Ambassador of the Republic of Angola to Russia, Augusto da Silva Cunha, told the Russian news agency TASS about this.
In January 2024, sanctions against Alrosa and its CEO Pavel Marinychev were imposed by the European Union. These sanctions were justified by the EU’s claim that the company had long-standing partnerships with the Russian armed forces, as it had sponsored a submarine for the Russian navy in 1997.
In addition, the EU has imposed a ban on direct or indirect imports, purchases or transportation of diamonds from Russia. This decision was supported by the G7 countries, which have since January 1st, 2024 imposed a ban on importing non-industrial, artificial, and jewelry diamonds from Russia into their countries.
Alrosa has worked in Angola since 1983, where it has implemented several projects with Angolan partners in geological exploration and diamond mining. In 2019, Alrosa announced that it was developing a large diamond deposit in Katoka, Angola in partnership with ENDIAMA, an Angolan state-owned company.
In 2013, with Alrosa’s participation, a promising new deposit was discovered in Luache, Angola, which has the potential to become one of the most significant discoveries in the last 60 years of diamond exploration.
