The report, titled “Operation Z: The Death Throes of an Imperial Delusion”, written by Jack Watling, senior research fellow for land warfare at RUSI, and Nick Reynolds, research analyst for land warfare, RUSI, details how various pieces of Russian military equipment found on the battlefield in Ukraine contain foreign-made components prohibited under Western arms embargoes.
“There is a consistent pattern across all major Russian weapons systems recovered from the battlefield. The 9M949 guided 300-mm rocket uses a US-made fibre-optic gyroscope for its inertial navigation. The Russian TOR-M2 air-defence system relies on a British-designed oscillator in the computer controlling the platform’s radar. This pattern is true in the Iskander-M, the Kalibr cruise missile, the Kh-101 air-launched cruise missile, and many more besides,” the report states.
“Russia’s modern military hardware is dependent upon complex electronics imported from the US, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Israel, China and further afield.”
But the authors say that it is not clear that the Western companies manufacturing them “knew that the Russian military was the end-user”.
“Many components are dual-use technologies. Meanwhile, Russia has established mechanisms for laundering these items through third countries. Restricting access, therefore, likely means preventing export to countries such as India of goods that are in some instances used for civilian purposes,” the report says.
UK government sources told TOI: “It is likely that some Russian military equipment contains sub-components, some of which are dual-use items that are not controlled, obtained from and through a range of Western and other countries, including the UK… These are commercial and industrial components which are not subject to export controls, and which are available from suppliers around the world.”
The UK Department of International Trade is now working internally to understand Russian procurement networks with a view to working with partners to develop further sanctions against Russia which would make this procurement more difficult.
It comes just after UK PM Boris Johnson visited India to announce a new and expanded defence partnership between the two countries, including the UK sharing new technology with India.
According to the authors, in mid-March the Russian presidential administration established an interdepartmental committee, overseen by deputy Russian defence minister Aleksei Krivoruchko, to survey Russian defence equipment to establish what could be produced domestically, what could be sourced from “friendly” countries as well as “the development of covert means to obtain critical components”.
“Russia is prepared to use blackmail to keep these channels open. For example, many of the computer components in Russian cruise and ballistic missiles are purchased ostensibly for civilian use in Russia’s space programme. Moreover, there are myriad companies based around the world, including in the Czech Republic, Serbia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, India and China, who will take considerable risks to meet Russian supply requirements. Constraining these supply routes without alienating the governments in these states will be a delicate policy needle to thread. It likely requires a systematic targeting of Russia’s special services tasked with orchestrating these supply chain operations,” the report adds.
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A UK government spokesperson said: “We take all credible allegations of breaches of export control seriously, and we will take further action if appropriate.”