The arrest in Milan of the son of a Russian governor accused of buying chips for Putin’s tank brings to light perhaps the most effective of all Western sanctions: the embargo on the sale of our advanced, usable technologies for military use.
A detailed report by the US State Department has just been published, which takes stock of these sanctions. It is confirmation that these sanctions are working. At the same time, reading this report inevitably raises the question: Why have we waited so long? The Oct. 20 State Department report is titled “The Impact of Sanctions and Export Controls on the Russian Federation.” He begins by stating that the measures taken to punish Moscow for invading Ukraine “have significant and lasting consequences based on Russia’s war industry”; since “they have impaired the ability of the Russian defense industry to replenish the arsenals destroyed during the war”.
As confirmation, the US State Department cites the fact that the Russian army is “suffering from significant bottlenecks and is being forced to procure supplies from less advanced countries such as Iran and North Korea”. Less advanced but still fearsome judging by the damage Iranian drones are inflicting on Ukraine’s power grid and other civilian infrastructure. The Washington Declaration lists all the damage that the sanctions have caused to the Russian war machine. “Unable to import semiconductors, Russia is forced to cannibalize its civilian aircraft,” that is, disassemble equipment to get spare parts.
“The production of hypersonic missiles has been stopped due to semiconductor shortages.” The damage due to the lack of foreign semiconductors and microchips (Western, Japanese, Korean) extends to the manufacture of “anti-aircraft and warning systems”, to the entire military aviation program. Many Russian mechanical factories were forced to close their factories due to the lack of western machines.
The description is long and detailed to inspire confidence: reading this report suggests that Putin’s ability to withstand a long war is limited because his arsenals are already being depleted under the influence of our sanctions.
However, where the Foreign Ministry’s statement lends itself to critical reading is in the second part, in which the export blocking measures are recalled in great detail. It states that the United States has “prohibited the export, re-export (i.e., sale by third countries of products manufactured in the United States), transfer for military purposes of items subject to the Export Administration Regulations to the Russian Federation and Belarus , from February 2022 ». So, by Washington’s explicit acknowledgment, many of these restrictions only came into effect after the invasion of Ukraine eight months ago. This means that America and its allies continued to supply Putin’s military with technology suitable for military use until the eve of this invasion. Apparently, the first round of sanctions adopted after the 2014 invasion of Crimea was very mild and in no way prevented the West from actually further upgrading Russia. And this despite the fact that Putin’s intentions to expand have been repeatedly and clearly confirmed. Since the preparation of a “military operation” like the invasion of Ukraine took a long time, Putin had years to stock up on advanced Western technologies before we decided to close the gates.
October 21, 2022, 12:05 p.m. – Change October 21, 2022 | 13:13
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