British experts studied the weapons that Russia used in Ukraine. And found in it 450 types of foreign details

Some of them almost certainly fell into Russia bypassing sanctions

In the war with Ukraine, Russia uses weapons, which largely consists of foreign components. Some of them could be imported in the Russian Federation bypassing sanctions, the report of the British Royal United Institute of Defense Studies (RUSI) said. The key conclusions of the investigation were retold by the publication “Important Stories” .

The Royal United Institute of Defense Studies of Great Britain studied trophy samples of 27 types of modern Russian weapons, which was used in Ukraine and was captured by the Ukrainian army. Among the studied samples were cruise missiles, communication systems and electronic warfare complexes. Experts have discovered in these samples at least 450 types of imported details of the production of the United States, European and East Asian countries.

“Without critically important Western components, Russia would not be able to wage a war the way it did during a military conflict in Ukraine in 2014 and continues now ... Here is a simple example: at first the Russian military is looking for a goal with the help of the“ Orlan-10 ”drone, then convey the coordinates of this target using the Aqueduct radio communications complex, and then release the rocket from the reactive system Fire “Tornado-S”,-write “important stories”.

In Orlan-10, RUSI experts found a Japanese engine, a control system based on a microcontroller of the Swiss company and a cardan suspension for the camera with American equipment. The Aqueduct complex contains more than 10 foreign components. And the critically important elements of navigation of the 9M549 missile, which is launched from Tornado-S, were produced by American companies, said in RUSI.

The same is the case with Russian cruise missiles 9M727 and X-101, in each of which experts found more than 30 components made by the largest American manufacturers. In general, out of 450 foreign components found in Russian weapons, 70% were released by companies from the USA.

“Important stories” note that Russia does not have its alternative to import details discovered by RUSI. To obtain permission to use foreign components in military equipment, Russian companies must prove the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation the absence of domestic analogues.

If part of the Western parts used in the production of Russian weapons was released in the early 1980s, then the rest were recently. An example is the components of the Caliber cruise missile, made in 2018-2019, that is, four years after the Western countries imposed sanctions against Russia.

Some of the components found in Russian weapons were subject to strict export control even before Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Thus, RUSI experts believe, they hit the Russian Federation bypassing sanctions: either they were secretly bought directly, or received through intermediaries. But a significant part of the discovered components are a dual -purpose product that is used in civilian goods, so export restrictions do not apply to it.

After Russia's invasion of the Western countries, high technology exports to Russia were banned, and technological companies announced the termination of supplies. But despite this, from the beginning of the war to the end of May, more than 15 thousand parties of Western electronic components were taken to Russia, the RUSI and Reuters agencysaid in a joint investigation. The manufacturers explained this by the fact that some of the goods were already on the way at the time of invasion of Ukraine or by the fact that these were internal deliveries of the company (as Intel said, which suspended activities in Russia in April). Nevertheless, some of the companies mentioned in the investigation have already announced internal inspections.