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nokia said it will be this month Stop their sales in Russia and condemned occupation of Ukraine. But the Finnish company didn’t mention what it left behind: equipment and software that connects the government’s most powerful digital surveillance tool to the country’s largest telecommunications network.

The vehicle was used to track supporters of Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny. Investigators said he had wiretapped phone calls from a Kremlin enemy who was later assassinated. Called the Operational Investigative Activities System, or SORM, the system is most likely in use right now as President Vladimir V. Putin has silenced and silenced anti-war voices in Russia.

For more than five years, Nokia has provided equipment and services to connect SORM to Russia’s largest telecom service provider MTS, according to company documents obtained by The New York Times. While Nokia isn’t making the technology that blocks communications, the documents reveal how it worked with Russian government-affiliated companies to plan, facilitate, and troubleshoot the SORM system’s connection to the MTS network. Russia’s main intelligence service, the FSB, uses SORM to eavesdrop on phone conversations, intercept emails and text messages, and monitor other internet communications.

Documents dating from 2008 to 2017 show, in previously undeclared details, that Nokia knew it had activated a Russian surveillance system. The work was necessary for Nokia to conduct business in Russia, where it has become the top supplier of equipment and services to various telecommunications customers to help their networks work. Even though Mr. Putin is more belligerent abroad and has more control at home, the business has brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue.

Over the years, multinationals have taken advantage of Russia’s growing demand for new technologies. Global anger now The biggest war on European soil World War II forces them to reconsider their roles.

The conflict in Ukraine has upended the notion that products and services are agnostic. In the past, tech companies have argued that it’s better to stay in authoritarian markets, even if it means obeying laws written by autocrats. Facebook, Google and Twitter I had a hard time finding a balance when pressured to censor it, whether in Vietnam or Russia, Apple teams up with a government-owned partner to store customer data in China accessible to the authorities. Intel and Nvidia It sells chips through dealers in China, allowing authorities to purchase them for computers that power surveillance.

The lessons companies learn from what’s happening in Russia may have implications in other authoritarian countries where advanced technologies are sold. A rule authorizing the U.S. Department of Commerce to prevent companies, including suppliers of telecom equipment, from selling technology at such venues was part of a bill called the Competition Act of America, passed by the House of Representatives in February.

“We have to treat sophisticated surveillance technology the same way we treat sophisticated missile or drone technology,” said New Jersey Democratic Representative Tom Malinowski, assistant secretary for human rights in the Obama administration. “We need appropriate controls over the spread of these things, as we do with other sensitive national security items.”

Russian intelligence and digital surveillance expert Andrei Soldatov, who reviewed some of the Nokia documents at The Times’ request, said that “it would be impossible to make such a system” without the company’s involvement in SORM.

“They needed to know how to use their device,” said Mr Soldatov, who is now a member of the European Center for Policy Analysis.

Not contesting the authenticity of the documents, Nokia said that under Russian law it must produce products that would allow a Russian telecom operator to connect to the SORM system. The company said other countries have made similar demands and must decide between helping the internet work or abandoning it altogether. Nokia also said it does not manufacture, install or service SORM equipment.

The company said it follows international standards used by many core network equipment suppliers that cover government surveillance. He urged governments to set clearer export rules for where the technology can be sold, and said it “strongly condemns” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Nokia does not have the ability to control, access or interfere with any legal interference capability on networks owned and operated by our customers,” the statement said.

MTS did not respond to requests for comment.

The documents The Times reviewed were part of almost two terabytes of internal Nokia email, network diagrams, contracts, license agreements, and photographs. cyber security firm UpGuard and TechCrunch, a news site previously reported on some documents linking Nokia to the government surveillance system. Following these reports, Nokia downplayed the extent of its involvement.

However, The Times got a larger cache showing Nokia’s depth of knowledge about the program. The documents include correspondence with Nokia’s engineers who sent SORM for review, details of the company’s work on more than a dozen Russian sites, photos of the SORM-affiliated MTS network, floor plans of network centers, and installation instructions from a Russian surveillance company. equipment.

After 2017, when the documents expired, Nokia continued to work with MTS and other Russian telecoms, according to public statements.

Dating back to at least the 1990s, SORM is similar to the systems used by law enforcement around the world to eavesdrop on and spy on criminal targets. Telecom equipment manufacturers such as Nokia need to ensure that such systems, commonly known as legal interference, operate smoothly within their communication networks.

In democracies, police are often required to obtain a court order before requesting data from telecom service providers. In Russia, the SORM system is a surveillance black box It can take any data the FSB wants without any oversight.

In 2018, Russia strengthened a law that requires internet and telecom companies to disclose their communication data to authorities, even without a court order. Authorities also required companies to keep phone calls, text messages and electronic correspondence for up to six months and internet traffic history for 30 days. SORM runs in parallel. separate censorship system Developed by Russia to block access to websites.

Civil society groups, lawyers and activists have criticized the Russian government for using SORM to spy on Putin’s opponents and critics. They said the system is almost certainly in use now. break the opposition against war. This month, Mr. Putin pledged to eliminate the pro-Western Russians he called “”.scumbags and traitors”from society and its government to separate Foreign internet services such as Facebook and Instagram.

Nokia is best known as the pioneer of mobile phones, sold After Apple and Samsung started to dominate the market in 2013. It now accounts for the bulk of its $24 billion. annual sales to provide telecom equipment and services for the operation of telephone networks. According to market research firm Dell’Oro, about $480 million of Nokia’s annual sales comes from Russia and Ukraine, or less than 2 percent of its total revenue.

last ten yearsThe Kremlin got serious about cyber espionage and telecom equipment providers were legally required to provide a gateway for espionage. If Nokia did not comply, it was assumed that competitors such as Chinese telecom giant Huawei would settle for it.

Until 2012, Nokia was providing hardware and services to the MTS network, according to documents. Project documents signed by Nokia staff included a network diagram showing how data and phone traffic should flow to SORM. Annotated photos showed a cable labeled SORM plugged into network equipment, apparently documenting the work of Nokia engineers.

Flowcharts showed how data would be transmitted to Moscow and FSB field offices throughout Russia; where agents can use a computer system to search individuals’ communications without their knowledge.

Details of how the program is used are largely kept confidential. “You will never know that there was surveillance,” said Russian lawyer Sarkis Darbinyan, co-founder of the digital rights group Roskomsvoboda.

However, some information about SORM has been leaked from court cases, nonprofits, and journalists.

In 2011, embarrassing telephone conversations of Russian opposition leader Boris Y. Nemtsov were leaked to the press. Mr. Soldatov, who covered the incident as an investigative reporter, said the phone records came from SORM surveillance. Mr. Nemtsov was killed Near the Kremlin in 2015.

In 2013, a lawsuit involving Mr Navalny included details about their communications believed to have been intercepted by SORM. Russian lawyer Damir Gainutdinov, who represents the activists, said SORM tracked some communications of Mr Navalny’s supporters in 2018. He said phone numbers, email addresses and internet protocol addresses were combined with information gathered by officials from VK, Russia’s largest social network, which is also required to gain access to user data via SORM.

Mr. Gainutdinov, who currently lives in Bulgaria, said: “These tools are not just for prosecuting someone, but for filing a file and keeping track of one’s activities, friends, associates etc. It is used to collect data about it,” he said. “Federal security service officers have unrestricted access to all communications because of the design of this system.”

As of 2015, SORM was gaining international attention. That year, the European Court of Human Rights in your name the program was an arbitrary “stealth surveillance system” without adequate protection against abuse. The court ultimately managedIn a lawsuit filed by a Russian journalist, he said the vehicles violated European human rights laws.

In 2016, MTS turned to Nokia to help upgrade its network across much of Russia. According to a document, MTS made an ambitious plan to install new hardware and software between June 2016 and March 2017.

According to documents showing how the network connects the surveillance system, Nokia conducted SORM-related studies at facilities located in at least 12 cities in Russia. According to letters from a Nokia executive informing MTS employees about the trip, in February 2017 a Nokia employee was sent to three cities south of Moscow to study SORM.

Nokia worked with Malvin, a Russian company that manufactures the SORM hardware used by the FSB. A Malvin document asked Malvin’s partners to make sure they entered the correct parameters to run SORM on hardware replacement. Also, Malvin reminded his technicians to report passwords, usernames and IP addresses.

Malvin is one of the few Russian companies that has won lucrative contracts for making equipment for analyzing and sorting telecommunications data. Some of these companies, including Malvin, were owned by the Russian holding company Citadel. Alisher Usmanov. Mr Usmanov, an oligarch with ties to Mr Putin, is currently the subject of sanctions in the United States, European Union, United Kingdom and Switzerland.

Malvin and Citadel did not respond to requests for comment.

Other Nokia documents specify which cables, routers, and ports to use to connect to the surveillance system. Network maps showed how hardware from other companies, including Cisco, was plugged into SORM boxes. Cisco declined to comment.

For Nokia engineers in Russia, SORM-related work was generally mundane. In 2017, a Nokia technician took on a mission for the city of Orel, about 225 miles south of Moscow.

“Work on the SORM review,” it said.

Michael Schwirtz contributing reporting.