As Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its third winter, Western regulators enforcing sanctions on Moscow are finally turning their attention to Russia’s production and procurement of weapons and their components. Despite Western export controls on military goods and critical components, Russia has ramped up weapons production all across the board, from the drones and cruise missiles that rain death on Ukrainian civilians to the combat vehicles and artillery used to batter Ukrainian troops at the front. There are abundant reports of newly produced Russian weapons filled with Western components, such as powerful Kinzhal and Iskander missiles made with Texas Instruments chips and German coils.
The objective of Ukraine’s Western supporters is to disrupt every node in Russia’s military supply chains, deprive the Kremlin of its ability to procure military technology, and impose higher costs on the Russian military-industrial complex. As the war threatens to deplete Western stockpiles of some items, such as ammunition, the pressure is on to shift the balance between what the West can provide to Ukraine and what Russia can build on its own or procure from other sources, including Iran and North Korea. Thus, preventing Russia from circumventing export controls to access the supplies it needs to continue waging the war has become a top priority for Western regulators.
Since February 2022, the United States and 37 other countries have enacted wide-ranging export controls on Russia, but enforcement has been lagging. Russia has been successful in circumventing restrictions through a combination of tactics: rerouting critical imports via third countries or transshipment points, obfuscating customs data, and using civilian proxy entities to redirect items to military firms. Since Russia’s military production relies heavily on foreign components, companies registered in countries not participating in the sanctions—such as China, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates—became key hubs for the reexport of Western technology.
