NYT: Russia still importing Western technology, bypassing sanctions
Officials in the United States and the European Union are increasingly concerned about Russia’s possible evasion of Western sanctions that allows it to purchase components for its weapons manufacturing, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
Late in March, American and EU officials traded information on "millions of dollars’ worth of banned technology that was slipping through the cracks of their defences and into Russian territory," the report reads, adding that such import is presumably sold to Russia through Armenia, Kazakhstan and other countries.
Western officials believe that Russia has managed to obtain "particularly sensitive" categories of chips and other electronic devices that they have deemed as "critical" to the development of weapons, including Russian cruise missiles that have struck Ukraine.
After dropping off sharply immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s chip imports crept back up, particularly from China. Imports between October and January were 50 percent or more of median prewar levels each month, according to tracking by Silverado Policy Accelerator, a think tank.
In addition, one US document from the meeting of Western officials said that in 2022, Armenia imported 515 percent more chips and processors from the United States and 212 percent more from the European Union than in 2021. Armenia then exported 97 percent of those same products to Russia, the document said.
Biden administration officials say shipments of the electronic equipment to Russia and Belarus fell 41 percent between 2021 and 2022, as the United States and its allies expanded their restrictions globally.
Last month, Reuters also reported that Russian companies were allegedly asking theur partners in Kazakhstan to help them circumvent Western sanctions by importing banned goods.