“Russia adapts faster than international restrictions have time to cause critical harm, such as a lack of ammunition at the front. ”, – WRITE: www.pravda.com.ua
Imports to Russia’s critical dual -use goods (ChPL) from the sanction coalition countries decreased by 96%. The purchase of microelectronics for rockets and drones has risen 2-3 times. The price of even Chinese and Turkish counterparts increased by 78-80%.
The Russian MIC is on the verge of opportunities: 84% of capacity is used continuously, more than 60% of the equipment is worn. Moscow barely closes its own needs-as a result, exports of weapons fell as much as 92%-from $ 14.6 billion in 2021 to less than $ 1 billion in 2024.
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We see how the sanctions are striking and specific companies of the MIC. Thus, the Novotroitsky Chrome Compound Plant, which occupies 20% of the Russian market and is critically important for the production and restoration of artillery barrels, stopped work in March due to raw material shortages. The chromium ore has reached the 16th EU sanction package, so Kazakh suppliers have terminated contracts with the NZHS, which serves, among others, the Kalashnikov concern and the Votkin plant-a manufacturer of missiles for “Iskander”. For two years, the same Votkin Plant cannot get a five -axis milling machine – critical for the manufacture of high -precision components.
It is possible to list the effective achievements of sanctions for a long time, but it is also necessary to admit that Russia adapts faster than international restrictions have time to cause critical harm, such as a lack of ammunition at the front.
Burning to the East: Moscow receives not only resources but also innovative equipment from Asia despite sanction Consider sodium chlorate – a raw material for the production of ammonium perchlorate, a critical component of Iskander missile fuel. After the collapse of the USSR, Moscow does not have its own production and depends on imports.
By 2022, 73% of sodium chloride came from the EU, mainly from Finland. It would seem that the sanctions had to significantly reduce the production of missiles, but as we can see, in 2025 they even more intensively attack Ukrainian cities.
In 2023, Russia found manufacturers in China and Uzbekistan to replace European raw materials. And even despite the critical supply of sodium chlorine for MIC, nor these manufacturers, nor exporters are still under the sanctions of the event.
Although the Russian Federation seems to be preparing for it, building the first production of sodium chlorine in the Tula region in 2027. Will it be possible to do this, given that most high -tech equipment is western? Unfortunately, Moscow gives him advice.
Monthly, the Russian Federation imports dual -use goods from China to more than $ 300 million – billions of every year. One of the most critical ones is numerical software (CPC) machines. Everything – from drones to hoods of ballistic missiles – is manufactured on this equipment, which regularly enters the military plants of the aggressor. Thus, from January 2023 to July 2024, only 22,000 CPC machines were received by more than $ 4 billion, 63% of them from the PRC.
Obviously, Beijing is not interested in restricting imports to the Russian Federation. But it is worth dismantling Chinese machines to see that 11 of 12 containing CPC controllers of Western brands. Moreover, the 13 of the 16 largest Chinese manufacturers supplying machines to the Russian Federation related to EU, USA and Japan companies: joint R&D centers, licenses, contract production.
Therefore, Russia not only adopted the rules of the sanction game, but also studied them perfectly. Receiving both sub -raw materials from the east and critical Western technologies in Chinese Wrapping.
How to make sanction pressure not only effective but also critical for the Russian Federation? I recently participated in the Relex Working Group of EU International Relations Council, which take care of foreign and security policy. During the panel, I was asked, “If one thing could be done to hurt the Russian MP, what would you advise?”
Hundreds of already familiar answers – from oil and LNG to Rosatom – were flashed into their heads. However, my answer was: a mandatory due diligence for all dual -use goods. European business should know not only the intermediary, but also the final recipient of its products.
Today, this obligation is already extended to the list of CHPL – about 50 commodity codes – and has results: reduction of imports by 96% (what I wrote about at the beginning of the text). However, in practice, there are thousands of dual -use goods that are not part of CHPL and, accordingly, are out of Due Diligence.
At the same time, world business works on the principle: “What is not forbidden – is allowed”. If the company “A” is not under sanctions – it can deal with it. And it does not matter that it was created in April 2022 in the border with the Russian Federation of Kazakhstan, that it has Russians in management and trades exclusively dual-use goods: from semiconductors to CPCs, which are easy to guess who and why.
To implement Due Diligence today has become much easier thanks to a huge number of OSINT tools. Most “red flags” can be seen after 2-3 requests in corporate or customs registers. It is more difficult, but in fact, financially and technically supporting small businesses in the development of internal control systems, as well as to create incentives for reorientation of supply chains with effective fuses against getting products into sub -country countries.
Russia rebuilds logistics routes, improvises, adapts to new restrictions. The sanction policy should be done in the same way if he wants to stop the aggressor because of economic pressure.
Export control can not only become a new norm of international trade, but also an effective security solution. Of course, if partners have political will to be implemented.
It is important for Western societies to realize that every doubtful agreement has not been conducted today is probably the lives of specific Ukrainians in a matter of weeks. Instead, responsible export control is a multifunctional deterrent that will not only be effective against Russian aggression, but also facilitate long -term peace – both in Europe and around the world.
Elena YurchenkoDirector for Analytics, Research and Investigations of the Council of Economic Security of Ukraine (IU)
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