The Dual-Use Loophole

Despite sanctions, the Russian military still gets critical banned technology from 59 U.S. firms, often via China

- DANIEL BUSH

RUSSIA IS EXPLOITING LOOPHOLES IN EXPORT controls to buy vast quantities of technology from the West that it is using to fight its war against Ukraine, with much of the material passing through China, Newsweek has found. More than 60 percent of the imported critical components in Russian weapons are coming from U.S. companies.

The scope of the tech still reaching Russia is significantly larger than acknowledged by Western officials, who frequently tout the export controls and sanctions system they have imposed against Moscow - in part to try to stop it from getting components for weapons.

Russia imported $20.3 billion in components associated with military equipment between March and December of last year, according to an analysis by KSE Institute, a think tank at the Kyiv School of Economics, to which Newsweek was given exclusive access. The figure is higher than previously reported and represents just a 15 percent drop from the year prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Companies based in the U.S. produced 64 percent of the dual-use goods components that can be used for military purposes, as well as for consumer products such as automobiles and household appliances - that Russia imported between March and December of 2022, according to Russian trade data.

Overall, Russia bought technology that had been manufactured by 155 companies headquartered in the U.S. or Europe, as well as in Asia and the Middle East. According to separate data compiled by Ukrainian authorities, 66 percent of the foreign critical components found in weapons systems the Russian military has used in Ukraine were manufactured by companies headquartered in the U.S.

"What we see from this data is that Russia's military still relies mostly on Western components" for its weapons systems, Elina Ribakova, the director of the International Affairs Program at the Kyiv School of Economics, tells Newsweek.