Experienced fraudster
Immediately after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Western countries applied various types of sanctions against the aggressor, including export sanctions. Their goal, among other things, was to deprive the occupier of access to microchips, semiconductors, and other high technologies that Moscow could not itself provide.
However, in 2024, it is obvious that Russia has not lost access to the components it needs. This, in particular, is evidenced by the presence of Western technologies on the fragments of cruise missiles that the aggressor released over Ukraine in January. Captain Andrii Rudyk, a representative of the Centre for Research of Trophy and Prospective Weapons and Military Equipment of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, commented to the BBC that Russia is trying to combine received foreign components with substitutes: “They replace them either with their own technologies or try to copy foreign models. But they cannot achieve the same quality. This is their biggest problem.”
Technology theft has been one of the main tasks of the Russian special services for many decades. The most famous example is the development of the first Soviet nuclear weapons based on information stolen by spies of the Manhattan Project in the 1940s.
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Eventually, the USSR realized that they had no chance of establishing their own production of microchips. Hundreds of secret service workers were dispatched to various countries to steal technologies for Soviet industry. By the end of the 1980s, a complex network of companies was created worldwide, through which components prohibited for export to the USSR ended up in the factories of the aggressor.
The testimonies of the Irish brothers, micro-technicians Eoin and Denis Sugru, who moved to work in Moscow in the early 1990s, are illustrative. In their memoirs “The Russians Are Coming” (The Russians Are Coming) the following words are given: “Working with components of Soviet production was a real test. In the end, we gave up and switched to using only Western technology. The only problem was access to them.”
Lack of control
The efforts of Western countries to deprive Moscow of the technologies it needs turned into the introduction of strict restrictions, but with weak control over their compliance. A similar result previously befell US attempts to block access for China: despite the sanctions, high technologies still ended up on the factory lines of Huawei and other Chinese manufacturers. According to American companies, control over the fate of products sold abroad is extremely difficult. If buyers from third countries receive it, they can sell goods to Russia, China or other sanctioned countries without hindrance.
Companies that make components often don’t want to know what happens to their products in the future. In many cases, they sign non-disclosure agreements with their clients. And the US Department of Commerce or its counterparts in European countries simply lack the manpower to check all contracts and transactions. An example of a successful exposure of a Western company illegally selling microchips to Rostec is the case of the French firm Ommic . However, in this case, the French actually worked directly with the Russians through a network of front companies, and Ommic director Mark Rockey had regular meetings with professional Russian smuggler Maksim Yermakov.
However, in most cases, Western companies do not know (and do not want to know) that they are working with Russians. Delivery of components to the territory of the aggressor takes place through networks of front companies in third countries that do not comply with the sanctions regime. Among the most popular are Serbia, UAE, Armenia, Turkey.
What should be done?
Chris Miller, a professor at the Fletcher School at Taft University , believes that component manufacturers should be required to install geolocation tools on their products. For example, Apple’s AirTag technology, costing $30, can be attached to expensive equipment, providing tracking of the location of the product, information about which will be transmitted to control authorities.
Determining geolocation should be the first step. In the future, it is worth establishing control over complex dual-purpose computers that can be used as control systems for artillery and other weapons. It is technically possible to learn not only about the place, but also about the way the technology is used.
Miller compares export sanctions with the fight against a hydra: “When we manage to expose one network of companies, we necessarily begin to fix another one. We do not have an answer to the question of how quickly and on what scale these networks supply technology to Russia.”
Finally, it should be noted that the sanctions still limited Russia’s access to components that it could previously buy openly on the market. Today, the occupier uses Western technologies to a very limited extent, trying to find substitutes. However, this is now enough to continue a large-scale war, and over time Moscow is increasingly adapting to such challenges. Therefore, the West must act as soon as possible to block the aggressor’s access to the goods he needs at the highest possible level.
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