If something has remained crystal clear to the Ukrainian government in these more than three years of war after the Russian invasion, is that international sanction mechanisms have a huge hole. TO the tests we refer, since kyiv intelligence has hundreds of reports in your possession that reveal that Russian drones have passed those sanctions for the lining. And not just drones, even in the tanks or missiles cruise and ballistic.
The latest: The Kremlin’s most sophisticated drone is, essentially, from the United States.
Orion is Western. Ukrainian intelligence has revealed that the Orionthe main Russian one-ton attack drone and almost identical in appearance to the American one MQ-9 Reaperdepends largely on electronic components manufactured in the United States and other Western countries.
Built by the Russian company Kronstadt (already sanctioned for its involvement in the Kremlin’s war machine), the Orion was conceived as the jewel of Russian unmanned aviation, capable of carrying up to 250 kilograms of bombs guided missiles and Kh-series missiles, fly for thirty hours and operate at a range of about 250 kilometers, expandable up to 300 via relay.
The but. However, its technological sophistication rests on a opaque network of providers international: sensors, navigation modules and microchips from companies such as Motorola, AMD, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices or Maxim appear integrated into their main control and recognition systems.
Technological dependence and holes. He report of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine (HUR), published on November 5 in its War&Sanctions portalincludes a complete technical breakdown of the drone, with a 3D model and a list of 43 Russian companies involved in its production. Of them, about a third are not subject to sanctions by the countries of the international coalition, which has allowed a stable flow of critical components to be maintained through intermediaries and border countries.
Although direct exports of microchips to Russia fell sharply after the 2022 invasion, sales to Türkiye they doubledthose of Georgia increased by 35 and those of Kazakhstan by 1,000, in what analysts interpret as a triangulation network intended to circumvent export controls. For kyiv, the only way to stop this flow is to impose strict tracking of each component, forcing companies to mark their products with unique numbers that allow them to follow their journey to the end user.
The double edge of Russian rearmament. The Orion was announced as the Russian answer to the American Reaperbut its trajectory has been rather irregular. Although Moscow presented it as an operation in Syria, its serial production only started in 2022coinciding with the large-scale invasion of Ukraine. Quickly, the prominence of the device was displaced by Shahed drones of Iranian design, whose local manufacturing at the Alabuga plant largely replaced the original Russian project.
Despite this, the Orion remains a symbol of Russia’s attempt to develop indigenous capabilities high-tech, while exhibiting its structural inability to do without the Western industrial ecosystem. The paradox, there is no doubt, is that the same drone used to bomb Ukrainian territory depends on the American business electronics that operate under a sanctions regime designed precisely to prevent this.
Implications and risk. The discovery of foreign components in Russian weapons goes beyond the war in Ukraine: it highlights the fragility of control mechanisms of exports and the transnational nature of the dual technology market, that which can serve both civil and military purposes. The HUR has warned that these cracks allow Russia to sustain its war effort despite restrictions, prolonging the conflict and threatening global security.
The experts they point out that the challenge lies not only in stopping illegal shipments, but in redesigning a supervision system that exhaustively traces the destination of each microchip and electronic module, something that today seems unviable given the complexity of global supply chains. Thus, the case of Orion becomes an accurate metaphor for the new face of technological warfare: a war fought not only on the battlefields, but on the silent silicon circuits that cross borders in disguise legitimate trade.
Image | Boevaya mashina, Mike1979 Russia
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