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AP PHOTO/LIBKOS

Time to Strengthen Sanctions: Russia continues to produce weapons using Western components

Ihor Petrenko

3 mins - 20 de Marzo de 2023, 07:05

The existing Western sanctions targeting Russia are apparently insufficient to be able to prevent further manufacture of missiles and drones that are used to hit critical and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
Missiles and drones, with which the Russian army massively bombards the critical and civil infrastructure of Ukraine, continue to be produced in Russia with the help of Western components and an elemental base, despite the imposed sanctions regime against the Russian military-industrial complex (MIC). 

For several months, Russia has been using high-precision weapons that were manufactured after the introduction of Western sanctions. As it turned out, the current level of sanctions is too weak to stop the production of missiles and drones. Today, the Russian Federation produces up to 40 new cruise missiles every month thanks to the supply of dual-use goods through 'gray' schemes and smuggling, and since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has managed to produce 240 X-101 missiles and about 120 Kalibr missiles.

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This allows the Russian Federation to continue to carry out large-scale shelling of critical and civilian infrastructure of Ukraine. Over the past 5 months, the Russian army has already carried out 15 massive attacks, using more than 820 missiles. These strikes killed hundreds of Ukrainian civilians, including children.   

Russia cannot do without Western components in the production of high-tech weapons. In addition, Russian missiles do not reach targets without clear coordinates, which are determined by navigation systems and which are manufactured by non-Russian companies

As experts of the Royal United Services Institute noted, since the beginning of Russia's full-scale military aggression against Ukraine, more than 450 foreign-made components have been found in 27 units of destroyed or captured Russian equipment. Of these 450 components, 318 were manufactured by American companies. The rest of the components are from Japan (34), Taiwan (30), Switzerland (18), the Netherlands (14), Germany (10), China (6), South Korea (6), Great Britain (5), Austria (2) and other countries.



Therefore, large-scale shelling of the civilian infrastructure of Ukraine will continue until the Western countries introduce much tougher sanctions against Russia, as well as against countries that help Moscow in the supply of dual-purpose goods. 

Also, leading Russian companies are creating their own PMCs, which should act as a counterweight to the terrorist 'Wagner group'. There is information about the emergence of such PMCs under Gazprom, Rosneft, Rosatom and other large Russian companies. Thus, on March 10, the German tabloid Bild published an article about the 'Gazprom security company', under whose cover there is a full-fledged PMC, which should not only become a counterweight to the 'Wagner group', but also an additional military resource that Putin will use in Ukraine and the world

Thus, Russian corporations have already joined the direct financing of Russia's military machine, including the production of missiles and drones for their PMCs for further shelling of civilian objects in Ukraine.

Therefore, it is very important today to prevent Russian state corporations from making money by doing business with foreign partners and to immediately introduce international sanctions against them.

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