As 52-year-old Oleksi Kuzmenko explains how to examine a crime scene caused by a Russian projectile, a lab veteran interrupts him with a piece in his right hand. He wants to show that what he has, and that he’s just been fumbling with his tennis ball-sized tools, is the carburetor of a Shahed model drone. This unmanned device is made in Iran, but this piece in particular is of Japanese origin. “We found that out a few weeks ago,” says Kuzmenko. It is one of the latest findings showing that the weapons Russia uses to punish Ukrainian citizens – cruise missiles, hypersonic missiles, drones, shuttles, tanks, helicopters… – have components manufactured in Western countries. This is mainly due to two things: an intricate labyrinth of intermediaries that makes it possible to circumvent the sanctions decided in Washington and Brussels against this deal, and an inadequate export control system of the Kiev allies.
Japan is just one example, albeit a notable one, since Moscow has already fired some 2,000 Shahed drones against Ukrainian territory, mostly civilians, since the invasion began. A recent report (Russia’s Military Capacity and the Role of Imported Components) prepared by the Analysis Center of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in collaboration with the Yermak-McFaul Group states: Out of a sample of 58 weapons, 67% were foreign weapons Those found Components were manufactured by American companies, 7% by Japanese and the same proportion by German. This does not necessarily mean, as the KSE defends, that the manufacturer knows the end use of his material. From point of origin to destination, to assembly in Russia, dozens of middlemen may have been used.
A forensic scientist this Friday showed the carburetor of a Shahed drone used by Russia against Ukraine. According to a forensic study, this piece is of Japanese origin. /OG
Kuzmenko works at the Kiev Institute of Forensic Scientific Research. Just minutes after a Kinzhal (hypersonic) missile was intercepted by Patriot anti-aircraft systems in the sky over the Ukrainian capital, the labs’ chief technician reveals the head of one of these recently collected projectiles, located on an artificial turf as part of a horror show: a nearly unharmed Shahed, who missed his target and fell; the remains of a cruise hull; a Tochka-U like the one that blew up Kramatorsk station; the remains of a missile with cluster munitions and even decoys to confuse anti-aircraft defenses.
“It’s from Italy, it’s Chinese, it’s American, this microchip was made in Switzerland…” lists the forensic scientist, holding the controller of an Iranian drone, on one of the tables in the lab cut at the point of impact. “It’s easy to buy these components anywhere and assemble them in Russia,” he says. This institute sends a team to the crime scene after an attack. They collect the evidence, take it to the lab, analyze it, look at the license plates, compare it to other samples, label it and send it to the police and then to the courts.
China as an intermediary
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Kuzmenko now shows a Kalibr cruise missile, one of those fired by Russia from the Black Sea Fleet. “All the electronics here are Western,” he says. These calibres are also part of the sample of Russian military equipment analyzed by the KSE, along with other missiles such as the KH-59, the Iskander and the KH-101. According to this institute’s study, the vast majority of components manufactured in the West are microchips. The electronic parts (semiconductors, microprocessors, microtransistors) of these weapons generally come from countries west of the Carpathians. Russia does not have the capacity to produce them. “We have to distinguish two things,” says Olena Bilousova, 30, one of the authors of the CFE report, “first there is the country where the manufacturing company is based, which can be the United States, and then there is the final producer. ‘ This may be the case in China, Malaysia or the Philippines. The product does not have to be imported into the USA and is not subject to export controls there.
The KFE has traced parts of these 58 pieces of Russian military equipment commercially. This analysis found 1,057 components manufactured by 155 companies located in 19 countries. Here the USA is in the lead, followed by Japan and Germany, followed by Switzerland, Taiwan, the Netherlands and China. However, the Asian giant acts as an intermediate country alongside Hong Kong and Turkey, from where these components ultimately reach the Russian trading partner.
But the casuistry is as diverse as the international trade routes. This KFE report notes that many electronic components were also found in ballistic missiles or cruise missiles that were primarily designed to support the Russian space program (Roskosmos), that is, to serve a non-military purpose. “Roskosmos,” the report says, “was used by Russia as a vehicle to acquire technology for both civilian and military purposes.” be able to cut off the new routes to stop this monster,” she affirms, “to force Russia to think of new ways to procure these components so that it costs more and less money is available for the war .”
Sample of weapons used by Russia against Ukraine at the Forensic Scientific Research Institute in Kiev. /OG
The government of Volodymyr Zelensky does not stop working on it and holds regular talks with those responsible for imposing sanctions by the allied countries. Vladislav Vlasiuk, 34, is the adviser to the head of the Presidential Office, Andri Yermak, on the matter. Vlasiuk admits in a not very optimistic tone that Russia still has resources and materials to feed its arsenals. Recall this Vinitsa-born lawyer that since June the European Union has had the opportunity to punish those countries that help Moscow to evade sanctions, as would be the case with intermediaries selling Western components. But things are slow. “Maybe,” he muses, smiling, “we should make the companies releasing these parts public.”
From an internal report, Vlasiuk salvages a photo of a microchip used by a Russian cruise missile and manufactured by a well-known American company. Vlasiuk is also an associate of the Yermak McFaul Group, which works to get the West imposing sanctions. He has seen almost everyone to convince them that more pressure needs to be applied. A few weeks ago, he met with Chinese mediator Li Hui, who denied that Beijing had sold any part to the big Russian arms factory. If private Chinese companies did it, that would be a different matter, said the diplomat dispatched by Xi Jinping. “Despite everything,” concludes the advisor, “without thinking about what everything would look like in a world without sanctions, we have concluded that they are effective.”
We return to the forensic institute with an anecdote related by Kuzmenko: “First, the Russians sent the Iranian Shahed with a phrase in Russian that said: ‘Do not touch’; They tried to fool the world. Now, this forensic scientist warns, this model’s unmanned vehicles are arriving with Russian license plates, suggesting they may have come from the new drone factory Moscow has been building in the Republic of Tatarstan.
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