Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has vocally supported Ukraine since Russia began its brutal invasion. But Tesla, like most other large automakers, has ties to at least one Russian supplier.

In late 2020, Tesla began procuring aluminium from Rusal, the Russian metals giant founded by sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska, according to invoices obtained by CNBC. The company was not under US sanctions when Tesla began buying from it.

The aluminium can be used, among other things, for casting, to make body shells for the Tesla Model Y, and has been used in production trials on new manufacturing lines at the Tesla plant in Brandenburg, Germany.

Tesla’s mega factory just outside Berlin that recently opened

Elon Musk won global praise for assisting Ukraine as Russia began its brutal invasion. His aerospace company switched on its satellite internet service, Starlink, for use in Ukraine at the request of the country’s digital transformation minister, Mykhailo Fedorov. His electric car company pitched in too, assembling Starlink equipment and Powerwalls, energy storage systems that can power that equipment, to ship to Ukraine.

But Tesla also has supply chain ties to Russia. Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker has purchased millions of euros worth of aluminium from Rusal, a company founded by sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, according to internal documents obtained by CNBC.

Rusal was once sanctioned by the US Treasury, which cited Russia’s “malign activities” at the time, but those sanctions were lifted under former President Donald Trump in 2019. Tesla only began buying aluminium from the company in late 2020.