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- Ukraine is still finding foreign-made parts in Russian missiles and drones years deep into the war.The discoveries highlight how Russia bypasses sweeping Western restrictions.Western officials said there are growing efforts to clamp down on the trend.
Over three and a half years into the war, Ukraine is still finding thousands of foreign-made parts in the Russian missiles and drones raining down on its cities.
The findings highlight how Moscow continues to evade sanctions and export controls that were meant to choke off its weapons industry.
"In the same way that we've had three and a half years to try to increase the restrictions, the other side has had three and a half years to figure out ways around them," Nathanael Kurcab, a former FBI intelligence agent and an international trade and national security expert, told Business Insider.
The components found in downed Russian drones and cruise and ballistic missiles range from microcomputers and sensors to switching connectors and converters. Ukraine says they're coming from the US, UK, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, South Korea, Japan, China, and Taiwan. Some of these nations are among Kyiv's closest partners.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said over 100,000 foreign-made parts were found among the 550 Russian drones and missiles used in a large-scale bombardment, underscoring the scale of the problem.
Every Russian missile and one-way attack drone contains "parts that are still being supplied to Russia from Western countries and various countries close to Russia," Zelenskyy said last week. This far into the war, he said, "it is simply strange to hear anyone claim they don't know how to stop the flow of critical components." Cutting off the tap isn't that easy though.
Gleb Garanich/REUTERS
A Western-made microchip built for benign purposes could wind up in a Russian drone in a number of ways, such as through civilian sales, shady middlemen, or countries ignoring export rules. What might have started as a "dual-use" part for everyday tech may quietly become a key component in a weapon of war.
Russia's still getting foreign parts
After Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, Western countries imposed sweeping sanctions and export controls on Russia in an attempt to isolate its economy and deny the country access to critical parts and technology that could be used for military purposes.
But Russia has found workarounds, such as using networks of front companies and shadowy intermediaries to move banned goods through the global market. Neither Russia's defense ministry nor its embassy in the US immediately responded to requests for comment.
Countries like Russia "have built strong circumvention networks that are able to hide where these goods are going, and they're able to continue to purchase them on the market," explained Kurcab, a lawyer who advises clients on issues related to the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Iran, which has endured decades of sanctions, is particularly skilled at evading them, Kurcab said. Throughout the war, Moscow has worked closely with Iran, as well as North Korea, another heavily sanctioned pariah state with ample practice acquiring components it isn't permitted to possess.
As long as a country is willing to pay a higher price, there are people who can move goods through the global network, shifting them around in a shell game. "No one knows where they're going," Kurcab said.
In some cases, parts might already be on the market before sanctions or export controls are imposed. A party complying with US sanctions might have already sold a product to an intermediary before they took effect. From there, it's very difficult to track the end destination.
Kordon Media via AP
A 2022 joint investigation by Reuters, iStories, and the Royal United Services Institute found Russia was building Orlan surveillance drones — used to direct artillery fire — with components it should not have had access to under export restrictions. A firm owned by a dual US-Russian citizen had illegally sold circuit boards made by a California manufacturer that said it was "very concerned" to learn its products ended up in Russia. That was just one case in many.
A spokesperson for Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs told Business Insider that "Russian procurement networks use multiple intermediaries, shell companies, and complex logistic chains to disguise their activities."
Western countries are taking steps to further isolate Russia, including guiding businesses on how to comply with restrictions, inspecting goods at the border, responding when Ukraine reports finding specific components, attempting to close loopholes that Russia is exploiting, and threatening criminal prosecution for those who violate the rules. However, even with tougher enforcement, Moscow continues to seek out gaps it can exploit.
It's a cat-and-mouse game, a spokesperson in the Netherlands' foreign affairs ministry said. "As we take new measures, Russia will try new routes to circumvent them.
"Fully stopping the flow of sanctioned technology is impossible due to the scale and complexity of global trade in these components, the persistent problem of circumvention via third countries, and the increased production of counterfeit versions of sanctioned components," they explained.
"Nevertheless, the measures we take significantly raise the costs for Russia to continue its war of aggression."
A cat-and-mouse game
Ukraine's partners say they're constantly updating sanctions and enforcement protocols to close loopholes, working closely with Kyiv to block any goods found in Russian weapons.
A British government spokesperson said that the UK takes this "incredibly seriously" and bans the export of "every battlefield item Ukraine has brought to our attention." It said this response will continue to be the case.
There is a growing effort to clamp down on illegal sales, Western officials told Business Insider.
AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin
Many European countries are further tightening enforcement to prevent sanctioned goods from reaching Russia. Germany said firms have "significantly increased their compliance efforts" to spot and reject suspicious orders, while the Czech Republic said it has introduced a new "catch-all" mechanism allowing authorities to block sensitive items that might be rerouted to Russia through third countries. The UK, which has sanctioned over $26 billion in trade with Russia, is targeting that loophole as well.
Switzerland said that its export and sanctions authorities are working with Ukraine and other nations "to prevent the procurement of electronic components, uncover existing procurement networks, and dismantle them." Officials said that components that have been linked to Swiss companies are often made abroad and are counterfeit, but investigations are underway to trace how genuine parts have reached Russia so those channels can be shut down.
As the Netherlands indicated, sanctions aren't completely ineffective. The UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office estimated that as of February, international sanctions had deprived Russia of at least $450 billion in war funds, and the government estimates that Russia pays up to six times more for dual-use items compared to the global price, further straining an already taxed economy.
At the end of the day, though, sanctions and export controls only go so far, and their effectiveness is ultimately determined by the international community.
"The sanctions and export control tools are really only as strong as the rest of the world is willing to treat them," Kurcab said. "It is a soft power tool, and it has its limits."
