At least six people lost their lives overnight Wednesday to Thursday in Lviv, western Ukraine, after a series of bombings orchestrated by Vladimir Putin’s army. Of 10 missiles launched, 7 were intercepted by Ukrainian anti-aircraft forces, a spokesman said. One of them targeted an apartment building.
Russian missiles are falling on Ukraine every day, and several Western countries, through their technology companies, are partly responsible for this. Including since the beginning of the war.
This is what the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions affirms, with supporting evidence, in a report published this week. He points to 155 foreign companies, of which more than 1,000 components were found in 58 Russian missiles and military equipment analyzed on the Ukrainian battlefield. The findings illustrate a certain disregard on Moscow’s part for Western economic sanctions and restrictions on international trade imposed on it after its invasion of Ukraine.
Two-thirds of these companies are American multinationals. Many have offices and production plants in Canada.
While recalling that “Russia is highly dependent on Western technology” for its “production of weapons of war” and that the components found “are not from old stocks”, the Group calls for a “more effective application of existing sanctions”. He also recommends the “strengthening of export controls”, but also a particular targeting of these same exports, now passing through third countries where front companies have allowed since the outbreak of the war to circumvent the sanctions.
These indirect exchanges between Russia and several Western countries increased from 54% in 2021 to 98% in the fourth quarter of 2022, the group says. They transit partly through China, but also through a constellation of other “friendly” countries of the West that are not part of the international coalition that imposed sanctions on Russia, such as Turkey, Kazakhstan, Armenia , Georgia, or even the United Arab Emirates.
Troubling Canadian figures
Canada’s international trade has obviously not escaped this reorganization of routes, reveals an analysis of federal data carried out by The duty. The figures show a drastic drop in exports of lithium batteries (-91%) and printed circuit boards (-73%), two dual-use components that can be used in the manufacture of weapons, to Russia between 2021 and March 2022.
However, in 2022, these exports have suddenly increased by 4000% for printed circuit boards to Turkey, by 2700% to the United Arab Emirates and by 900% to Kazakhstan, countries known to serve as intermediaries for Russia. And this compared to the previous year.
In the case of lithium batteries, Canada sent 72 units to Turkey in January 2022, before the war. In October of the same year, 9,650 units were exported there, or 135 times more. Same thing in Kazakhstan, where the trade in these batteries has increased from 116 units in 2021 to 36,000 in 2022, or 310 times more.
However, the federal data does not mention the ultimate destination of these exports or the use made of these products, which can enter into the components of military equipment, including lethal weapons.
Last March, Turkey quietly tightened its border controls to finally block the export and re-export to Russia of products targeted by Western sanctions, including several electronic and electrical components. The sloppiness was becoming embarrassing for this NATO member who was facing a heavy fire of criticism.
Material evidence
For the International Task Force on Russian sanctions, however, there is no doubt that the critical components found in Russian missiles sent to Ukraine, but also in drones, armored vehicles, rockets, such as microchips, regulators voltage regulators, capacitors, memory cards… did indeed come from Western companies, including the American Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, Intel Corporation, the German Infineon, the Korean Samsung or the Swiss STMicroelectronics. To name but a few.
In the case of two Russian Kh-101 missiles that fell on Kiev last December, analysis of the remains concluded “with near certainty” that they had been manufactured in the two months preceding the attack, with Western components that may have managed to get around the sanctions, the report sums up.
Contacted by The dutythe U.S. company AMD, named in the report, said it “strictly complies with all U.S. sanctions and global export control regulations” and recalled having “suspended all sales and technical support for [ses] produced in Russia, Belarus and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine in March 2022”. It also claims to have a “robust export compliance program” to prevent diversion of its products to Russia.
Same thing on the side of the Japanese Renesas. The semiconductor manufacturer, which has offices in Ontario, claims to respect “fully the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia following its action in Ukraine” and says that it opposes “its products being used for human rights violations,” a spokesperson summed up.
In a terse statement addressed to the DutyTexas Instruments, for its part, says it no longer sells its products in Russia and states that it “does not support or condone the use of [ses] products in applications for which they were not designed”.
Last June, in a document presented to the members of the G7, of which Canada is a member, by the Ukrainian presidency, Volodymyr Zelensky called on the world’s major economies to put pressure on countries that are not acting convincingly to control exports of critical components to Russia.
What is at stake is crucial for the rest of the war. Last May, the Kiev School of Economics (KSE), the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and the Jamestown Foundation estimated that by the beginning of this summer, Russia would reach very low thresholds in its reserves of Iskander missiles. 9M723 (12%), Kalibr missiles (11%) and its Kh-101 missiles (5%).
However, according to Ukraine, Russia has adapted to the sanctions and should be able to double its production of missiles between 2022 and 2023, increasing it from 512 to 1063, and this, using Western components of which Moscow does not can’t happen. A disturbing observation nearly a year and a half after the start of the war that Russia launched against Ukraine and the start of the sanctions that were imposed on Moscow.
“The Russian military supply chain has continued to access critical Western technologies since the start of the war, throughout 2022 and the first quarter of 2023”, denounces the International Task Force on Russian sanctions, which asserts “The circumvention of sanctions cannot go unpunished. He asks in passing that the “regulatory framework” in place to fight against money laundering be in the future applied “to export control”, to combat this drift.
Since February 2022, the Russians have launched more than 6,000 rockets against Ukraine, the Panel summarizes, hitting 3,387 non-military buildings and infrastructure and killing 1,734 civilians