US Probes How American Electronics Wound Up in Russian Military Equipment in Ukraine (msn.com) 174
America's federal agents "have begun questioning U.S. technology companies on how their computer chips ended up in Russian military equipment recovered in Ukraine," reports the Washington Post:
Commerce Department agents who enforce export controls are conducting the inquiries together with the FBI, paying joint visits to companies to ask about Western chips and components found in Russian radar systems, drones, tanks, ground-control equipment and littoral ships, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive investigations. "Our goal is to actually try to track that back, all the way back to the U.S. supplier" to determine "how did it find its way into that weapons system," one Commerce Department official said of the probes....
It isn't clear which specific components are being probed. But investigators from a variety of countries have identified Western electronics in Russian weaponry found in Ukraine. Many of those components appear to have been manufactured years ago, before the United States tightened export restrictions after Russia seized Crimea in 2014. But others were manufactured as recently as 2020, according to Conflict Armament Research (CAR), a research group in London that has examined some of the parts....
CAR last month sent investigators to Ukraine to examine Russian weaponry and communications equipment, and reported finding components from 70 companies based in the United States and Europe. They found the parts in military radios, airborne defense systems and in remnants of cruise missiles that the Ukrainians recovered in various towns and villages, Damien Spleeters, one of the CAR investigators, said in an interview.
An associate professor of electrical/computer engineering at Purdue tells the Post "Most of the items they are listing are available through any commercial computer parts supplier or digital parts supplier."
But the Post spoke to a lawyer representing one of the contacted technology companies. "Among the questions federal agents are asking: whether tech companies sold their products to a specific list of companies, including middlemen, that may have been involved in the supply chain."
It isn't clear which specific components are being probed. But investigators from a variety of countries have identified Western electronics in Russian weaponry found in Ukraine. Many of those components appear to have been manufactured years ago, before the United States tightened export restrictions after Russia seized Crimea in 2014. But others were manufactured as recently as 2020, according to Conflict Armament Research (CAR), a research group in London that has examined some of the parts....
CAR last month sent investigators to Ukraine to examine Russian weaponry and communications equipment, and reported finding components from 70 companies based in the United States and Europe. They found the parts in military radios, airborne defense systems and in remnants of cruise missiles that the Ukrainians recovered in various towns and villages, Damien Spleeters, one of the CAR investigators, said in an interview.
An associate professor of electrical/computer engineering at Purdue tells the Post "Most of the items they are listing are available through any commercial computer parts supplier or digital parts supplier."
But the Post spoke to a lawyer representing one of the contacted technology companies. "Among the questions federal agents are asking: whether tech companies sold their products to a specific list of companies, including middlemen, that may have been involved in the supply chain."
Maybe Russia paid for it? (Score:2)
I mean, ain't you happy that they finally understood how great capitalism is?
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How? Money. (Score:5, Informative)
It's no mystery how Russia could have anything they want, they have lots of money, and even better lots of natural resources countries are desperate for (like oil) - any number of countries could have legally bought all of the American tech t hey wanted and then shipped it off to Russia.
What are we really going to do if China or India is shipping American tech to Russia?
Re:How? Money. (Score:4, Interesting)
What are we really going to do if China or India is shipping American tech to Russia?
Sanctions. Money is a language everyone understands.
Re:How? Money. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sanctions. Money is a language everyone understands.
Sanctions are what has made Russia so rich it can afford to buy anything from anywhere.
How realistically would you sanction all of India? Or especially all of China, which produces most of our stuff?
We're going to see though when China invades Taiwan, what is possible in regard to sanctions against the company we are deeply tied to for survival.
Re:How? Money. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sanctions. Money is a language everyone understands.
Sanctions are what has made Russia so rich it can afford to buy anything from anywhere.
There are some problems you can't solve by throwing money at them. Russia's current problem is that they have built most of their best and most modern armaments on US or US allied made components. Sanctions have effectively stopped the flow of those components. That's why Uralvagonzavod cannot manufacture the T-14 Amata in large numbers, it's why Uralvagonzavod cannot even repair the upgraded T-72s that make up the backbone of the Russian army which is why we are seeing un-upgraded T-62s straight out of deep storage showing up in the Donbas. It's why Su-57 stealth fighters aren't tearing Ukrainian air defences apart. It is also why Russia has resorted to using carpet bombing with dumb artillery and rockets instead of precision guided munitions. Now, can Russia switch completely to Chinese components for its entire arsenal? Yes, but the can't they do it in a weekend cram session by throwing tons of money at the problem like you seem to be suggesting. Switching the entire Russian high tech arsenal to Chinese components is going to take at least a decade, probably more. The really sad thing here is that Putin had the chance to build up the Russian tech industry. Russia has a lot of smart people. If the money Putin and the oligarchs stole had been put into building up a tech industry Russia would be in a very, very, very different place but Putin didn't do that. Instead he turned Russia into a thoroughly rotten and corrupt kleptocratic shit-hole. Putin wants to be remembered as a latter day Peter the Great the man who dragged Russia kicking and screaming into the modern age, Putin will be remembered as the exact opposite of what Peter the Great was and what he achieved.
That is not at all the case (Score:3, Interesting)
Sanctions have effectively stopped the flow of those components.
The story shows they plainly haven't, and even if they had China can just make whatever components Russia needs for more modern tanks.
We have pushed Russia into the arms of China, so we built up a group of countries now aligned against the U.S. where one company can manufacture any high tech components needed, and the other has vast natural resources. The U.S. is utterly incapable of stopping Russia from getting anything it desires, and the sa
Re:That is not at all the case (Score:4, Insightful)
Sanctions have effectively stopped the flow of those components.
The story shows they plainly haven't
All that is being shown in your comment is how badly you have failed to understand the argument being made, once again, true to form. These components got into these systems over multiple years. They didn't just get in there yesterday, what's changed is that we're finding out now because Ukraine is capturing Russian vehicles in various states of disrepair and studying them, rebuilding them for immediate reuse, etc.
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It seems like you are the one that doesn't understand, what is stopping them from refreshing the supply of components in the coming years? Please explain since you seem to think you know just how exactly the further supply of components has been stopped when it hasn't.
Oh, dear sweet stupor ken doll, you have failed at reading comprehension again. I never said it has been stopped. What I said was that these components that are in use in Russian weapons systems didn't just get there and then magically wind up in tanks. The tanks they're fielding with these parts in them were sent to Ukraine long before the new sanctions, so the sanctions are irrelevant to the presence of these parts in these vehicles.
Please, please, for the love of all that is scrutable, learn to read.
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China's on China's side.
China's been copying American designs since time was time.
They have whole companies whose whole job is to de-lid and reverse engineer ICs.
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Sanctions have effectively stopped the flow of those components.
The story shows they plainly haven't, and even if they had China can just make whatever components Russia needs for more modern tanks.
We have pushed Russia into the arms of China, so we built up a group of countries now aligned against the U.S. where one company can manufacture any high tech components needed, and the other has vast natural resources. The U.S. is utterly incapable of stopping Russia from getting anything it desires, and the sanctions against Russia have boosted Russia's income so much (from the spike in oil prices) Russia can afford anything it desires.
You are being fed a pack of lies about where Russia stands in relation to the war, and its own situation. Time to tack a step back and think realistically about where they are based on data we know rather than what is claimed.
That is a steaming pile of bullshit. So the Russians have managed to smuggle small quantities of western components into the country. Big deal. The point is that despite whatever small successes Russia has had smuggling in western components that is nowhere near enough to crank out thousands of T-14s, modern cruise missiles, guided bombs, Su-57 stealth fighters. Perhaps you can you point us to the secret location where Russia is squirrelling all of that high tech gear away while sending rusty T-62s, dumb ar
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So the Russians have managed to smuggle small quantities of western components into the country. Big deal.
Over 1000 Orlan-10 drones with French 640x480@120Hz microbolometers https://lynred.com/sites/defau... [lynred.com]
Hundreds of Thales thermal sights on Russian tanks and helis https://www.barrons.com/news/f... [barrons.com]
Its not small numbers, its bulk sales of military grade components and systems under post Crimea embargo.
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So the Russians have managed to smuggle small quantities of western components into the country. Big deal.
Over 1000 Orlan-10 drones with French 640x480@120Hz microbolometers https://lynred.com/sites/defau... [lynred.com]
Hundreds of Thales thermal sights on Russian tanks and helis https://www.barrons.com/news/f... [barrons.com]
Its not small numbers, its bulk sales of military grade components and systems under post Crimea embargo.
Fair enough, but in the grand scheme of things this is still chickenshit.
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No the story does not show plainly that sanctions haven't worked. What the story shows is that they have evaded export controls which is not the same thing.
Russia has blown through huge amounts of it's military hardware with little or no prospect of replacing much of it while sanctions are in place, and much of a a crock of badly maintained shit to being with. If they are strapping off the shelf GPS systems to their jet fighters that should tell you everything. Then again it is clear that they have been una
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You better hope this isn't true and that Russia just isn't showing what it's truly capable of or has. Because if they do burn though all their conventional weapons and this does escalate, they'll pretty much have no choice but to bring out the nukes.
All they have to do to end this is go home. There's no reason to respond to a supposed existential threat by creating an actual existential threat. Nobody wants to see Russia do that shit, including their supposed allies in China. They start popping off nukes, and they're getting nuked by everyone who is anyone.
The only real nuclear risk from Russia is if Putin goes even more batshit, and is somehow enabled by other people who are also batshit. But there's no logical reason to use them in the foreseeable fu
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You are being fed a pack of lies about where Russia stands in relation to the war, and its own situation. Time to tack a step back and think realistically about where they are based on data we know rather than what is claimed.
So the country with a supposed nazi problem elected a jewish president? Because that wad Russia’s excuse for invading.
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The problem with Chinese components, in particular semiconductors, it that it's the wild west out there, you've got tons of parts that are totally alien to the rest of the world. The feeling I get when I look at some of these parts is, if you've read "The Second Variety" or seen "Screamers", what China is producing for internal use is already IVs and Vs. These are like nothing you've seen in the west, the data sheets are often garbage so you need to get the actual data from a chat forum hosted on a server
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The two largest countries on the planet are still trading with them and in fact all 3 are hugely benefiting from the sanctions.
Prove you didn't just pull that out of your ass by educating us. How exactly are all three of those countries benefitting from the sanctions?
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Prove you didn't just pull that out of your ass by educating us.
If only that were possible.
Re:That is not at all the case (Score:5, Informative)
Prove you didn't just pull that out of your ass by educating us. How exactly are all three of those countries benefitting from the sanctions?
How bout do some research instead of relying on cable news and the US Government??
I did some research. So far Russia has lost the following in Ukraine:
30500 troops
208 aircraft
174 helicopters
1358 tanks
3302 armored vehicles
649 artillery pieces
207 rocket launchers
93 air-defense system
2275 soft skinned vehicles
13 ships and light boats including one big fat missile cruiser
515 drones
120 cruise missiles shot down
Most of this has been confirmed by 3rd party sources. In addition Russia has become a world wide military laughing stock.
Now make us laugh by telling us how all of this plus the sanctions is 'benefitting' Russia.
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In addition Russia has become a world wide military laughing stock.
I wouldn't go that far. Most countries would still lose a war against Russia.
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Are you sure you haven't got confused and cited the Russian figures on Ukrainian losses?
Re:That is not at all the case (Score:4, Insightful)
While Russia have not done well, they are hardly a laughing stock by anyone that understands.
Russia is most assuredly a laughing stock at this point. Even without their military incompetence on display, they became a laughingstock when they got a leader who likes to be filmed riding shirtless and who is so pathetic he has to hire ex-NHL players to pretend that he can score against them in exhibition ice hockey games and who "hunted" a tiger that was drugged and chained to the ground. Anyone with a brain and little self-respect can see that sort of person for what they are. Of course, the US was a laughingstock for its fake-orange former gameshow host leader as well, but Putin appears to be a permanent fixture.
Also, I'm not sure you've noticed, but the majority of Russia's military "might" is old Soviet stuff. They have some recent additions to their Navy (mostly subs) but most of their ships, tanks, artillery, even aircraft are all Soviet hand me downs. That does not make Russia look like a superpower, it makes them look like a pathetic pretender.
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and at what cost to the West? must be well in excess of a $1T at this point. Hell we are a couple of hundred billion in the red just for weapon supplies let alone what it has done to our economy.
and your point is? What you you have us do? Start a shooting war with paranoid dictator that has been reading to much of his own propaganda and has the only other nuclear arsenal capable of taking the world back to the stone age? Or stand by and let the power mad fascist in the Kremlin play Napoleon in Europe, after all it worked out so well last time the west made concessions to land grabbing militaristic expansionist go ask Neville Chamberlain how that worked out.
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The west can afford this, unlike Russia. Just calculate the population count of the west vs. Russia and the collective GDP. China&India may buy Russian oil, but they will not give the Russians freebees to conduct their war of aggression. The weapon sent to Ukraine so far have certainly not cost $1T, that number may include the total damage to Ukrainian civil infrastructure, and it is still far below the cost of the Afghanistan effort. And no, the failed Afghanistan effort did not cause an economic colla
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While the Russian army drags along a lot of very old stuff (just like the Ukrainian armed forces BTW), they also have some fancy new stuff. They have capable drones. They have cruise missiles, which the Ukrainians still can't shoot down reliably. Yes, they're running out of supplies, because the Russians are spending these weapons in larger amounts than they can rebuild them. The sanctions do seem to have an effect after all.
What really drags the Russians down in this conflict are their amazingly corrupt le
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I wouldn't go that far. Most countries would still lose a war against Russia.
Any country would still lose a war against Russia.
FTFY.
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While Russia have not done well, they are hardly a laughing stock by anyone that understands. They are gradually taking large swath of Ukraine despite 100Billion+ of Western modern military being injected into the conflict. It is a proxy war and it is not looking good for either side at this point, Ukraine least of all.
Horse shit. Russia's army is 10 times bigger than Ukraine's army and you call what is happening in Ukraine a Rusian army 'success'?? LOL, the Russians should shave occupied Kiev by the 3rd day at the latest. Russian tanks should be sitting on the Polish-Ukraine border by now. Russia is the literal laughing stock of the entire military world
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In addition Russia has become a world wide military laughing stock.
I wouldn't go that far. Most countries would still lose a war against Russia.
Who is dumb enough to invade Russia? It was Russia who was dumb enough to invade Ukraine and got it's ass kicked up and down the Central European Pains. Some Pentagon type observed that the way they are doing even Belgium could beat Russia, I would have considered that statement ridiculous a year ago but now, I agree with him. It is literally going to require surgery to get Ukraine's boot out of Russia's ass.
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Are you sure you haven't got confused and cited the Russian figures on Ukrainian losses?
Yes, unlike you I'm not delusional.
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and at what cost to the West? must be well in excess of a $1T at this point. Hell we are a couple of hundred billion in the red just for weapon supplies let alone what it has done to our economy.
and your point is? What you you have us do? Start a shooting war with paranoid dictator that has been reading to much of his own propaganda and has the only other nuclear arsenal capable of taking the world back to the stone age? Or stand by and let the power mad fascist in the Kremlin play Napoleon in Europe, after all it worked out so well last time the west made concessions to land grabbing militaristic expansionist go ask Neville Chamberlain how that worked out.
Plus, even if that figure is true, spread over the US, EU27, UK, and various other allies $1T is something they can easily afford.
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I wouldn't go that far. Most countries would still lose a war against Russia.
Countries with modern western weapons would tear the Russian military apart. We know that now. Even small countries like Finland and Estonia would destroy an Russian invasion force. Remember the Ukrainians have T-64s and Su-27s as their main weapons systems. Imagine how the war would be going if Ukraine had F-35s, F-22s, M270s and M1-A2s. The Ukrainians would be half-way to Moscow by now if that was the case.
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because the Russians are spending these weapons in larger amounts than they can rebuild them.
No, no they can't. Russia can't rebuild tanks, APCs, IFVs, cruise missiles, precision munitions, modern planes, or modern warships right now. The only thing the Russians have a large supply of is munitions because they have plenty of the raw materials to make them. They can also probably make artillery but only old designs or replace the warn out barrels of existing guns.
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China and India are getting gas and Oil and other exports below market rates. Russian economy has done quite well, 100billion in oil and gas since the start of the war and getting better than pre war prices for it.
Confused. Which is it? Are China and India getting Russian gas at below market rates, or is Russia getting better than pre-war prices for their gas and oil? The only other possible explanation for what you're saying is if Russia was selling gas and oil before the war at prices even further below market rates than they are now.
The question of whether Western countries will be able to handle the sanctions short term is a valid one. However, long-term is another story. Russia has demonstrated that they are not
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Confused. Which is it? Are China and India getting Russian gas at below market rates, or is Russia getting better than pre-war prices for their gas and oil?
European countries were getting Russian fuels at very low fixed prices, in accordance with long-term contracts. Now, as you correctly surmise, Russia can sell the same fuels in Asia for prices that are higher than those Europe was paying, but lower than the global market price.
Prices that are low enough for India to more than double the amount of Russian oil it buys, refine a lot of it, and sell it to the USA at a nice high markup.
But don't worry! Just keep laughing.
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"China May oil imports from Russia soar to a record, surpass top supplier Saudi"
https://www.reuters.com/market... [reuters.com]
Re:That is not at all the case (Score:5, Interesting)
^this. funnily enough the best currency in the world to have held this year is the Ruble.
While that might be great for investors who actually held rubles from the start of the year, or especially those who bought them in March, it's hardly a long term trend. The ruble has basically just about caught up to where it was about 4 years ago vs. the dollar and that's only because Russia is manipulating their currency like crazy and the dollar is experiencing inflation. The reality is that Russia is currently doing everything it can to mask an economy that really is hurting.
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For all the rhetoric in the press and the pain we are all feeling for the costs of these Sanctions they are having very little effect on Russia itself, really just inconveniencing them.
This recent video says otherwise. [youtube.com] They are putting butter in anti-theft boxes. Prices in general are up 20% or more. The economy is more than the value of the ruble.
Remember, the sanctions have been designed to avoid hurting average people. Sanctions against the military have been more effective (so we've seen airplanes flying with consumer GPS, and computer chips ripped from washing machines to put into military equipment). People have been crossing the boarder, buying cameras, and crossing back to Russ
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Pretty interesting video! Thanx!
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Just one more example to add to millions of others that, whatever a government sets out to do, it usually ends up accomplishing the exact opposite.
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China is not remotely worried about Russia. The only thing Russia is good at is throwing men at problems and not caring if they die. China is even better at that. They can literally out-Russia the Russians.
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Corruption in the Russian military was a big problem. [youtu.be] Plus Russia has been preparing for sanctions for a decade. [businessinsider.com] But they are affecting him though. [youtu.be]
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It's not just their military stuff either. Their civilian aircraft industry can't produce new airplanes or maintain existing ones due to a lack of European and US made parts. In time they might be able to replace engines and avionics with Russian ones, but they chose foreign parts because they are the best.
For now they have some Western owned aircraft that they stole and are stripping for parts. They were leased to Russian airlines, but once the war started the Western leasing companies had to write them of
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We're going to see though when China invades Taiwan...
China are not going to invade Taiwan. How could they, and what would they possibly gain?
The Chinese government is run by very cautious men who don't take huge risks. Especially huge risks that have no real payoff.
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Pride makes people do foolish things. But I doubt they will too. [youtu.be] And if they did, the change would be greater than the current war. [youtu.be]
Re: How? Money. (Score:2)
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China are not going to invade Taiwan.
Not necessarily, if this invasion works out for Russian, they might. This is the real reason we are supporting Ukraine. If China sees this work out for Russia, we are in for a string of similar invasions (only 1 from China probably). If Russia has to limp home with nothing, we won't. In case you were confused about why we are fighting for wheat fields.
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Sanctions are what has made Russia so rich it can afford to buy anything from anywhere.
Glad I am not that rich.
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This is why they now make cars without airbags and anti-lock brakes [businessinsider.com] /sarcasm
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How realistically would you sanction all of India? Or especially all of China, which produces most of our stuff?
You don't sell them anything you don't want to see show up in russia. Want a jet engine? Tough shit.
Re: How? Money. (Score:3)
Indeed.
There are consultants in the US who will buy anything for a price and route it anywhere in the world.
They understand money and they love sanctions.
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It's no mystery how Russia could have anything they want, they have lots of money, and even better lots of natural resources countries are desperate for (like oil) - any number of countries could have legally bought all of the American tech t hey wanted and then shipped it off to Russia.
What are we really going to do if China or India is shipping American tech to Russia?
So investigate how the components got there.
Once you find the trail pressure the suppliers/middlemen in whatever way you can. Even if the folks responsible are in China or India those governments don't want their industries caught up in the sanctions. You can either sanction the companies directly or count on their governments to shut down those specific operations.
You're never going to cut them off completely, but the better you enforce the sanctions the more expensive and lower quality the components they
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There are also secondary sanctions (ie, sanctioning anyone who does business with the company you are trying to target, if you can't sanction that company itself).
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So investigate how the components got there.
To what end? It's legal for any company in India or China to buy any of the components, and China probably made 90% of them. They aren't participating in the sanctions against Russia so what exactly is your plan when you find out what companies or government agencies sold them to Russia? For that matter, how can you investigate when every company in those countries doens't have to cooperate with your investigation in any way?
Again it all comes back to, what are you going to do even if the answer is crystal clear? Nothing would happen, so why bother investigating?
If it's a Chinese/Indian company making US components and shipping them to Russia then you can start sanctioning people involved with those companies (and pressure the governments).
If they're buying from a western distributor and reselling to China/India then you can shut down that transaction and go after the distributor depending if they knew what was happening.
You won't shut it down, but if you can at least make it more difficult that helps Ukraine.
oh oh oh I know, pick me pick me! (Score:2)
They bought them through their local supplier, and despite what some moron in government thinks components don't all magically evaporate when a country is put under sanctions!
Did I get it right?
What kind of a stupid probe is this? We're not talking about North Korea here. Sanctions against Russia don't date back far enough to expect western technology to be absent from their military gear.
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"despite what some moron in government thinks components don't all magically evaporate when a country is put under sanctions!"
Sure, this would never have occurred to the government inspectors. They were all born yesterday under a toadstool. Maybe you could tell them, I'm sure they'd listen to you.
China, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
I've personally seen factories in China making versions of EU/US market products specifically for Iran, North Korea, and Russia - they don't even try to hide it FFS. There are a huge number of component traders as well.
Re:China, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
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Extra-shift production or just straight-up "you handle it" sales at a distance by"American" companies?
Business is business (Score:2)
I know of US companies building oil facilities in Jordan... that has no oil, so that they can be reassembled in Iraq, or Libya buying water pumps and valves with specs requiring they support a viscosity != 1.0 so...
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Wrong tense? It's been a while since those were sanctioned for oil production equipment ;)
They're probably Chinese (Score:4, Interesting)
There are so many counterfeit products coming out of China I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a number of these "American" components are actually of Chinese origin. We're used to seeing Chinese manufactured chips, often based on technology gained via IP theft, carrying very genuine (sometimes indistinguishable) markings of western chips in USB controllers, motor controllers and CPUs. Sometimes the only way you can tell is through timing issues, or rare cases where they've actually fixed silicon bugs that still exist in the genuine articles.
One of the weirdest cases I came across was actually remarking of genuine chips: TI BLE processors whose '40 markings had been removed and reprinted as '41 variants. The 40/41 chips are functionally identical with the exception of one having pins for USB slave functions, the other uses them for an extra SPI bus, though neither of those functions were used in the devices they were found in. One wonders why they'd even bother doing that or how they could even profit from it. We only discovered it when firmware updates failed because they were the wrong variant and started investigating further.
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One wonders why they'd even bother doing that or how they could even profit from it.
I'd guess that either they couldn't get the expected part, or could get the other part cheaper in some kind of fire sale.
One word answer theyâ(TM)ll find eventually (Score:2)
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How? (Score:2)
Free enterprise, that's how. God bless Adam Smith, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill and Deng Xiaoping. Amen.
Comercial suppliers (Score:4, Informative)
"Most of the items they are listing are available through any commercial computer parts supplier or digital parts supplier."
If the parts in question are sold through any of the dozens of commercial electronic components suppliers around the world (like Digi-Key in the USA or RS Components here in the UK) and the number of parts required is modest (assuming perhaps one per cruise missile) then I think it will be very hard indeed to keep them out of the hands of the Russians.
Anyone with a credit card can buy components from these suppliers so all the Russians have to do is get some of their diplomats or agents in various countries to buy some and then forward them in a diplomatic bag.
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Just try to buy a new Rasberry Pi...they're practically unobtainium.
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You don't need a state-of-the-art chip to guide a missile or drone. A 15 or 20-year old one is perfectly fine. Incidentally those are also what NASA uses on its space probes for reliability reasons. If those are good enough to land a rover in a crater on Mars, they're good enough to land a warhead on target in Ukraine.
Unfortunately that means Russia can produce the chips themselves. If you're hoping they'd run out some day and Ukraine will win the war... don't hold your breath. And on a related note, if you
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Unfortunately that means Russia can produce the chips themselves.
Assuming, of course, that they can still get the supplies to run their own chip foundries.
I wouldn't make that assumption.
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Why do you think they can't get supplies to run their foundries? The one critical country with all of the rare earth minerals is China, which has not sanctioned Russia. Remember, we're talking about >100 nm technology here. They don't need those fancy lithography machines from the Netherlands.
Not to mention, the assumption that the Russian lines would collapse due to a lack of supplies is dangerous. If that doesn't turn out to be true, they'll win. I'd much rather err on the side of assuming they can kee
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The Soviet army won against Nazi Germany to a large extent on US made trucks and artillery pieces. Without that support - and they certainly won't have this type of support now - it might have been a lot more difficult for them.
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Lend lease definitely helped a lot. It amounted to ~30% of Soviet weapons. However, the fighting in Ukraine does not approach the intensity of WWII. There were 6 million active Soviet soldiers fighting Nazi Germany. Today there's about 200,000 Russians in Ukraine. The Soviets would have been able to supply 4 million soldiers without American support, and while I'm sure Russia today would not be able to do quite as well as the Soviets given the size difference, they would not be 20 times worse.
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They are actually stealing it from Ukraine ...
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that means Russia can produce the chips themselves. If you're hoping they'd run out some day and Ukraine will win the war... don't hold your breath.
The Russians are literally having trouble producing and maintaining not only their fancy pants Armata tanks but also their modernized T-72s. They are dependent on foreign nations for parts for the fire control systems on both. Nice try though.
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Unfortunately that means Russia can produce the chips themselves.
Russia lacks any chip foundries. That's why they are stealing washing machines (they want the chips in them). If they could make chips, their tank factories wouldn't be idle while they deploy 60 year old tanks lacking modern optics with half the armor of a modern tank that can be destroyed at range by RPG-7s (that even the Taliban have). Those T-62s are rolling coffins and the Russian soldiers know it. That's why you are seeing Russians using tanks less and less as the war wears on.
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The world is having problems getting common chips just to build autos and appliances.
No. The world is having problems getting specific chips for their specific designs. Companies that are willing to tweak don't have much of a problem shipping anything.
The big corporations will have priority for years to come.
My credit card worked just fine the other day and I have a Mouser box here right now full of various ARM chips, regulators, hundreds of small components.
Just try to buy a new Rasberry Pi...they're practically unobtainium.
The Raspberry Pi is not a component. It's a product from a specific supplier who has *always* had problems meeting supply even before COVID or any of the supply chain problems.
If this is your
Maybe this is a good thing (Score:2)
If the current sanctions are stopping the supply of these chips, it may stop Russia making more of the weapons.
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Yeah, so rather then using a guided missile to hit a specific target and minimize collateral damage, they'll have no choice but to start making dumb bombs and go WW2 style carpet bombing entire cities as was done in europe.
<sarcasm>yeah because Russia has been so very concerned about collateral damage up until now </sarcasm>
Simple : they buy them on Alibaba (Score:2)
Besides recovering them from the enormous amount of electronic trash that the US 'recycles' to other countries.
how ? (Score:2)
Starts with C and ends with A (Score:2)
most likely, went through china (Score:2)
This was one of the areas that Trump got right by trying to stop this.
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Loral Space Systems [google.com] had a major technology transfer scandal in the 90s for which they received a slap on the wrist. Their CEO was politically active.
Ike warned us about a military industrial complex (Score:2)
American electronics? (Score:2)
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Nothing is made in America anymore
The US is the 2nd largest exporter in the world (China is about 5% ahead). Turns out getting your industry news from a (politically motivated) main stream source is bad idea. You know that you can just lookup these types of numbers yourself on the Internet right?
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The US exports a lot of food and heavy equipment, and is still the planet's #1 arms dealer whether you measure by tonnage or by currency. So yeah, we export a lot of stuff. But there's whole categories of stuff we used to make here and don't any more, or only produce in minuscule quantities now.
Craigslist (Score:2)
People do realize Craigslist still exists right?
Like this could be controlled? (Score:3)
But if you're talking about most semiconductors on the planet... then all you need is someone living in any country without sanctions to hop online, place and order and
Where are these components made? (Score:3)
Hunter Biden⦠(Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know current practice, but around 1986 I worked for a company with a small division that would buy specialty products in the US and ship to the European parent company for resale in Europe. Department of Commerce actually showed up for an audit of records. We had a couple of records deficiencies, and were required to subscribe to and keep a library of the Federal Register, and various commodity control classification lists and denied end-use entities lists.
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Yeah that's called export controls. But the problem is the vast majority of tech is not rocket science. Well it is, but my point is rocket science isn't exactly difficult. It's quite trivial to build advanced guidance and reconnaissance systems when there's a steady stream of technology flowing into your country by means of generic consumer tech.
The problem is, there's nothing unique or magic about military applications, which means you either cut off technology from Russia in general (including consumers,
Re: (Score:2)
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This.
If your customers have manufacturing in China, you have no control over where your parts end up.
If you don't, then you probably still have no control, and very low sales volume.