Ikea Stopped Selling In Russia. But Its Former Belarusian Supplier Filled The Gap — With Strikingly Similar Furniture

When the Swedish furniture giant IKEA exited Russia and Belarus in 2022 in response to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it instructed its suppliers to do the same. A Lithuanian supplier complied, and stopped sourcing IKEA products from its Belarusian factory.

But the Belarusian factory didn’t stop exporting furniture after losing the rights to IKEA designs. Instead, it appears to have filled an IKEA-shaped void in the Russian market, exporting pieces that are strikingly similar to the Swedish designs.

The website of one Russian retailer even told customers that “IKEA's departure doesn't mean you have to give up your familiar interior design style,” adding that they “now have the opportunity to buy those same beloved products.”

“Yes, their appearance and names have changed slightly,” the blurb on the website said. “But the design, quality, ease of purchase, and ease of assembly remain unchanged.”

IKEA said it could not comment on individual cases, but noted that it “continuously monitors potential infringements” on its intellectual property rights. 

“How we approach individual matters depends on a range of legal and practical considerations that may differ from market to market,” IKEA added in an emailed response to questions from OCCRP’s media partners, Belarusian Investigative Center and 15mins.

In response to questions about the similarities between the IKEA products and the furniture produced in Belarus, Novus Industry, the company that owns the factory, said it “manufactures products based on designs and blueprints provided by its customers.”

Until last month, Novus Industry was owned by Lithuanian businessman Sigitas Paulauskas. He also owns the Lithuanian furniture and timber conglomerate VMG Group, which has continued to supply IKEA with items that are not manufactured in Belarus.

IKEA said it had found no sign that Belarusian products had entered its supply chain, which would be a potential breach of European Union sanctions.

“Based on the information available to us at this stage, including sanctions screening and publicly available information, we have found no evidence that our supplier has acted in breach of applicable sanctions,” IKEA said. 

Paulauskas said his “exit from the business in Belarus began immediately after Russia's open aggression in Ukraine” in 2022. He said he had not participated since 2017 in the operational governance of Novus Industry, and that the formal transfer of management to local executives began in 2023.

Novus Industry confirmed Paulauskas’ comments in its response to questions from reporters.

The sale of Novus Industry was not finalized until last month, Paulauskas said. The process took a long time due to “finding an investor, their due diligence process, Belarusian laws regulating share transfers to foreign entities, active sanctions regimes, and the necessity of obtaining creditor consents.”

Paulauskas added that Novus Industry “has no right to manufacture products based on IKEA designs.”

Cecilia Wahlberg, a senior lecturer in industrial design at Sweden’s Konstfack University, examined images of products exported to Russia from the Belarusian factory. She said some pieces differed enough that they would not likely be considered an infringement on IKEA products, but others showed “apparent similarities in the design and measurements.”

“I would think that the factories that are producing the ‘new’ non-IKEA furniture are using the same production drawings and machinery that were used for producing the IKEA furniture,” she said. 

"Defending design rights internationally is unfortunately both hard and expensive, which is why a lot of independent designers find themselves copied at a larger scale and are more or less unable to do anything about it,” Wahlberg added.

Russia has become Novus Industry’s key market. Around 70 percent of its production was being sent there in 2024, the company’s director told local media that year. Belarusian customs data obtained by BIC shows the factory directly exported more than $30 million worth of goods to Russia between March 2023 and May 2025.