Ireland pressed to cut off alumina shipments feeding Russia's war

The 120-metre cargo ship Karin sailed out of Ireland's Shannon estuary this week bound for Russia, its hold packed with alumina — the chalky white powder that becomes aluminium, and eventually missiles, drones and rocket fuel. It left from Aughinish in County Limerick, home to Europe's biggest alumina refinery, which Rusal bought in 2007. The plant regularly sends shiploads straight to St Petersburg and other Russian ports, and it has dodged every EU sanctions package aimed at hobbling Moscow's economy since the 2022 invasion.

The numbers are piling up. The campaign group Alumina 22 estimates 491,307 metric tons of Irish alumina went to Russia between March and October. A 2026 report by the Economic Security Council of Ukraine found that after alumina plants in Australia and Ukraine stopped exporting to Russia, Moscow's supplies fell by about 40 per cent — and roughly 17 per cent of Rusal's alumina now comes from Ireland. An investigation by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and the Irish Times this year found Aughinish alumina is smelted in Russia into aluminium, some of it sold to a metals trader that supplies Russian defence contractors.

Irish Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik isn't buying the industry line. The material is clearly ending up in military supplies, she said, calling it unthinkable that Ireland would feed Putin's war machine even indirectly. Government minister Niall Collins hit back that there is absolutely no evidence the alumina reaches military supply chains. Aughinish Alumina said its product has no connection to the Russian military supply chain and that it pays an independent firm to hand Irish authorities monthly audits for enhanced traceability.

Dublin's own investigation hasn't settled it. Enterprise Minister Peter Burke, who enforces Ireland's sanctions, said in July it was impossible to prove Rusal's claim that Irish alumina only makes aluminium for export from Russia. The government won't publish its findings — it passed them to the European Commission, which drafts sanctions. EU sanctions envoy David O'Sullivan has read the report and said he has no doubt the investigative journalists got it right. Standing beside President Micheál Martin in Dublin in June, Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russian-controlled companies in Europe keep supplying the aggressor with essential materials.

Brussels is now moving. The European Parliament passed a non-binding motion in July calling for a ban on alumina exports to Russia, but alumina was left out of the bloc's 21st sanctions package that month. The Commission is sounding out member states about the Irish shipments, and any new package needs all 27 countries to agree. A Commission spokesperson framed sanctions as a delicate balance, noting alumina is a critical raw material — while backers of the plant point to the hundreds of jobs it supports and the squeeze on cargo through the Strait of Hormuz.

In Foynes, the windswept port town beside the refinery, plenty of people work at Aughinish or know someone who does. Retired docker Joe Hanlon said the business is too big for the government to shut down and provides too much employment for politicians to touch — but added that yes, they should act, if Ireland wants to stop the war in Ukraine. Bacik's party wants the refinery temporarily nationalised, the way Ireland seized its banks after the 2008 crash, arguing it can halt exports to Russia and find willing customers elsewhere in Europe.