Russia Sustaining War Machine Despite Western Sanctions

Russia Sustaining War Machine Despite Western Sanctions

Executive Summary:

• Despite successive Western sanctions packages, Russia’s military-industrial complex has expanded since 2022 by exploiting major sanctions gaps, leaving many defense-linked companies, chemicals, and dual-use technologies outside existing restrictions.
• Russia continues acquiring critical military components through intermediary states, parallel imports, and weak export controls, while thousands of companies—particularly in the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong—facilitate sanctions evasion and sustain Russian weapons production.
• Ukrainian intelligence has documented extensive Western-made components in Russian missiles, drones, aircraft, and air defense systems, demonstrating that U.S., European, and Asian technologies remain integral to Russia’s precision-strike capabilities despite sanctions.
• Tightening sanctions on unsanctioned suppliers, dual-use machinery, chemicals, and intermediary networks is increasingly urgent, as Russian weapons built with Western components threaten not only Ukraine but potentially the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by the decade’s end.

The West is still imposing new sanctions on Russia due to its war against Ukraine. On July 23, the European Union adopted its 21st sanctions package against Russia, and on July 28 the U.S. Senate advanced sanctions legislation targeting Russia’s energy sector (Council of the European Union, July 23; Kyiv Post, July 29). Western sanctions, however, have not successfully completely inhibited Russia’s military-industrial complex. The paradox of Russia’s military-industrial complex is that, as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found, it grew after the imposition of Western sanctions and the decline in arms exports following the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2026). This is because Western sanctions are allowing Russia to continue to build weapons systems that are being used against Ukraine.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the 2025 Group of Seven (G7) meeting, “There’s not a lot left to sanction from our part.” At least half of the Russian companies that supply the military-industrial complex, however, remain unsanctioned (Euromaidan Press, February 9). Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, includes 21 companies—e.g., Innovation Hub, Mayak Production Association—that are not sanctioned and have links to the military-industrial complex (Dixi Group, March 4).

The West faces two main difficulties when imposing sanctions against Russia’s military-industrial complex. According to Andrey Zayakin at The Insider, it is “not always clear which goods are being imported specifically for military use.” Additionally, “when one company is sanctioned, a substitute soon appears in its place, and while new Western restrictions are being introduced, the Russian military-industrial complex has time to adapt” (The Insider, February 18). Russia acquires technology through intermediary countries, parallel imports, secondary markets and weak end-user controls (Ukraine Business News, April 9). Western sanctions have slowed down but not ended the supply of Western goods to Russia’s military-industrial complex.

There are no sanctions on chemicals used to produce mechanical lubricants and military-grade tires. Western and Chinese companies provide motor oil additives and lubricants (Kyiv Independent, February 16). Raw glycerine is not sanctioned and continues to be exported to Russia despite its use for the manufacture of propellants and explosives. Russian petro-chemical manufacturers supply the military-industrial complex (Dekleptocracy Project, April 30).

Machine-building equipment from 15 Taiwanese, 13 German, 8 Czech, 6 Swiss, 3 Japanese, and 1 U.S. company was exported to Russia despite its dual-use for the military-industrial complex (Kyiv Independent, June 19). Russia’s leading tank maker, Uralvagonzavod, uses Western machines that require parts and software updates. Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) documented 300 Western companies exporting machinery to Russia that is essential to its military-industrial complex (Kyiv Post, March 26, 2025).

Many Western companies continued to supply Russia’s military-industrial complex through corrupt middlemen and via intermediary countries such as Türkiye, Georgia, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan—countries not sanctioned. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) directly, and through Hong Kong, continues to be a major supplier to Russia’s military-industrial complex (Freedom Hong Kong, February 2026).

In February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed two decrees sanctioning 24 individuals and 27 companies supplying Russia’s military-industrial complex, including those circumventing Western and Ukrainian sanctions from countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Kyrgyzstan, and Georgia (President of Ukraine, February 7 [1], [2]).

The HUR documented 6,000 companies violating sanctions by trading with sanctioned Russian military-industrial complex companies, of whom 4,000 were Chinese (including those from Hong Kong) and the remainder from Türkiye, the Gulf states, the Middle East, and India (The Insider, March 11). A Dutch national registered the Redwing Metal company in Türkiye to re-export components and machinery from the European Union to Russia (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, June 19). A Polish–Ukrainian investigation found the Polish company Famot Pleszew had exported machinery to Russia (United24 Media, January 25, 2025; FrontStory, March 13). Fifty Western components are used in Russian shipbuilding and by the ship repair companies Kronstadt Marine Plant, Sevmash, and the Baltic Shipyard (Euromaidan Press, March 18).

Russia’s military-industrial complex is assisted by two well-established sanctions evaders—Iran and North Korea. Western components are found in Iranian Shahed drones, which are used to build Russian Geran drones. Iranian drones used to attack Cyprus and the Gulf states during the U.S.–Israeli conflict with Iran used Western components (United24 Media, March 5).

The number of Western components used by Russia’s military-industrial complex is very high, and Western governments are failing to close the channels used to export them to Russia. The HUR maintains an extensive database of components from 33 countries used by the Russian military-industrial complex. As of April, the HUR’s database included 1,635 components used in 218 Russian military-industrial complex plants (HUR, accessed July 29).

After analyzing debris from nearly 500 Russian drones and 50 missiles launched in an October 2025 attack on Ukraine, the HUR found they contained tens of thousands of Western components, which included 1,500 in the Iskander cruise missiles, 405 in the Kalibr cruise missiles, and 192 in the Kinzhal ballistic missiles (President of Ukraine, October 6, 2025). In another analysis of a Russian attack in May, the missiles Russia fired were built this year using 100 components from the United States (Texas Instruments, AMD), Germany (Harting Technical Group), and the Netherlands (Nexperia) (Kyiv Post, May 15). The largest share of components comes from the United States, the PRC, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, and Taiwan. Fewer components are from Czechia, Sweden, and Australia.

The Kyiv Independent, posing as a Russian defense company in 2025, ordered U.S. chips to prove how easy it was to buy them—and, if they had wished, export them to Russia (Kyiv Independent, January 24, March 10, 2025). An investigation by BILD magazine found Russian postal workers in Germany were sending components to Russia (BILD, January 25; United24 Media, January 26). Russia has built military communications systems using radio bridges, antennas and networking equipment from the U.S. company Ubiquiti (The Insider, February 20).

A third of the Russian military-industrial complex companies (e.g., Krasny Oktiabr, National Institute for Aviation Technologies, Yashz Avia) that build SU-57 planes used to launch the devastating KH-59 glide bombs at Ukraine are not sanctioned (Euromaidan Press, April 20). Russian glide bombs include components from the United States (Altera Corporation, Analog Devices, CTS, Texas Instruments, Linear Technology, MaxLinear, Sipex, American Semiconductor, Products Integrated), Ireland (Antena manufacturing, Taoglas), Switzerland (Ublox, TE Connectivity, Axicom STMicroelectronics), Japan (Din-Tek Semiconductor, Okuma Corporation), Taiwan (Akira Seiki), South Korea (Samsung Machine Engineering), and the PRC (Kyiv Independent, November 17, 2025). Components from the German company Guhring LLC are found in the SU-30 Russian fighter jet and S-400 air defense system (The Insider, July 3). The Pantsir S1 air defense system uses 52 Western components (Kyiv Post, May 12; Militarnyy, July 5).

The two main needs of Russia’s war machine are components for missiles and drones that are launched nightly at Ukraine. The Kh-101, 3M-14, KN-23/24, Iskander 9M728, and Kinzhal KH47M2 cruise and ballistic missiles, which have been launched against Ukraine, include components from the U.S. companies mentioned above, as well as AMD, Anderson Electronics, Intel-USA, Motorola, Vicor Corporation, and Microchip Technology, alongside Dutch, Swiss, German, Swedish, Japanese, Taiwanese, and South Korean parts. Eighty to ninety percent of the guidance systems in Russian cruise missiles are Western.

Components from 16 U.S., Swiss, Chinese, and East Asian companies are found in the KH-101 cruise missile—64.3 percent of the components in the KH-101 cruise missile are U.S., 17.9 percent German, 7.1 percent Swiss, 7 percent Dutch, and 3.6 percent Taiwanese. A ballistic missile fired at Kyiv in April 2025 used 116 mainly U.S. components (Kyiv Independent, October 6, 2025). Seven hundred ninety-nine shipments of XP Power microchips were exported from the United Kingdom to Russia via Hong Kong and are used in its KN-23/24 ballistic missiles (The Telegraph, February 16).

Russia’s Lancet and Zala reconnaissance drones use many Chinese components as well as components from 12 U.S. companies (Kyiv Independent, November 21, 2024). Besides the U.S. companies listed above, these also include components built by Nvidia, National Semiconductor, Micron Technology, Xilinx, Qorvo, Bel Fuse and Semtech Corporation.

Russia’s Molniya-2R reconnaissance drone includes Chinese and U.K. (Raspberry Pi5 Microcomputers) components (Euromaidan Press, December 22, 2025). Russia’s Kniaz Veshchiy Oleg reconnaissance drone depends on foreign parts, including 33 U.S., five Swiss, Taiwanese, Dutch, and Chinese components (Euromaidan Press; United 24 Media, April 13).

Russia’s Orion, a plagiarism of the U.S. Reaper drone, is built by 43 Russian companies, a third of whom are not sanctioned. Orion uses components from many U.S. companies listed earlier (Kyiv Independent, November 5, 2025)

The HUR documented U.S., Swiss, Japanese, Taiwanese, Dutch, Irish, and Chinese components in the Shahed 107 Iranian drone rebuilt by Russia as Geran-1 (Kyiv Independent, November 25, 2025). Russia’s Geran-2 drone uses the rotary encoder sensor built by the Austrian company AMS-Osram. The Geran-2 uses a clock buffer built by the Indian company Aura Semiconductor. Russia’s Geran-3 drone (using Iranian Shahed 238 specifications) includes 45 Western components (Euromaidan Press, September 16, 2025). Half of these are from U.S. companies (including Infineon Technology, Sipex Corporation, Adesto Technology, Alpha and Omega, and other U.S. companies listed earlier), with the remainder from Switzerland (seven companies, including U-Blox and STMicroelectronics), Germany (including Infineon Technology and Bosch), the PRC (six companies), United Kingdom  (Raspberry Pi, Futura Technical Services), and Japan (Rubycon Corporation) (The Telegraph, February 18).

With turbojet propulsion and triple the speed of the Geran-1, 2, 3, and 4 drones at 300 and 400 miles per hour, Russia’s most advanced Geran-5 drone is a major technological upgrade. Geran-5 bridges the gap between low-cost loitering munitions and high-speed cruise missiles to bypass Ukrainian air defenses. Geran-5 includes components from six U.S. companies (in addition to the U.S. companies listed earlier, Monolithic Power Systems and CTS Corporation), and the German company Infineon (Kyiv Independent, January 22).

Historically, sanctions have never been 100 percent effective. Nevertheless, Western governments could take a greater number of steps to tighten sanctions on chemicals, components, and machinery exported to Russia for use by its military-industrial complex. Russia’s military equipment is being used today against Ukraine, but with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intelligence and military leadership predicting Russia could be ready to launch an attack on NATO’s territory between 2027 and 2030, its weapons, which use a high number of Western components, would then be used against the West.