More than 450 foreign-made components have been found in Russian weapons recovered in Ukraine, evidence that Moscow acquired critical technology from companies in the United States, Europe and Asia in the years before the invasion, according to a new report.
Since the start of the war five months ago, the Ukrainian military has captured or recovered from the battlefield intact or partially damaged Russian weapons. When disassembled, 27 of these weapons systems, ranging from cruise missiles to air defence, were found to rely predominantly on Western components, according to research by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) defence think-tank.
[...] About two-thirds of the components were manufactured by US-based companies, RUSI found, based on the weapons recovered from Ukraine. Products manufactured by the US-based Analog Devices and Texas Instruments accounted for nearly one-quarter of all the Western components in the weapons.
[...] In one case, a Russian 9M727 cruise missile – one of the country’s most advanced weapons that can manoeuvre at low altitude to evade radar and can strike targets hundreds of kilometres away – contained 31 foreign components.
[...] In response to questions about how their chips ended up in Russian weapons, the companies said they comply with trade sanctions and have stopped selling components to Russia.
[...] Russia is currently working to find new routes to secure access to Western microchips, according to RUSI. Many components are sold through distributors operating in Asia, such as Hong Kong, which acts as a gateway for electronics making their way to the Russian military or companies acting on its behalf, RUSI found.
With the way the global economy is set up, is export control on these kinds of chips enforceable in practice?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Thursday August 11 2022, @08:10AM (19 children)
If they're relying heavily on non-Russian parts that means the sanctions are hindering them from making more of those weapons. Having them crammed full of Russian-made parts would be a worry.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Thursday August 11 2022, @08:35AM (10 children)
I agree. But if they are using a low standard off-the-shelf components and not having a terrible failure rate, then perhaps they have just solved the problem of obtaining expensive hi-spec parts. In the West we often over-engineer things perhaps unnecessarily, driving up costs.
The Russians have long had the concept of making things in large numbers but of a lower quality. It is true that the war in Ukraine has perhaps highlighted some of the disadvantages of this method of production, but if the missiles and 'smart' weapons that they are using are anything to go by they do at least seem to be 'good enough' most of the time. If you are aiming at building complexes rather than destroying point targets you perhaps don't need millimetre accuracy.
They need to produce weapons that an idiot can use - who cares if they lose some weapons, and idiots, during the course of a war if they are eventually successful? They only need a positive result to justify to the Russian public all that they have done in their name. The dead idiots will be hailed as heroes.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Thursday August 11 2022, @09:30AM (1 child)
> "... ranging from cruise missiles to air defence"
That is a somewhat limited range of items. While nice and essential to have it might not be all that important for them to keep the "special military operation" going. After all they seem to be heavily into artillery, which may or may not fit into the range. They also seem to be covered when it comes to conventional small arms and should have stockpiles of AK:s. They are probably also covered as far as western weapons are concerned from what they can recover from Ukraine since western Europe is still more or less pumping weapons in to keep the thing going. It's the drawback of the whole thing, Russia will eventually get their hands on most of the things sent there.
Also if you are making a missile, or a guided bomb if you will, then it doesn't really matter to much if it hits a few meters to the left or right. Just increase the yield of the explosion and you are covered. To have pin-point accuracy is nice and all but sometimes good enough is just good enough. They are probably not as concerned about such niceties as some western nations cause they don't care about public opinion in the same regard, they do care but not about the same things. But if you can't be exact just go with brute force instead and lots of it.
That said they can probably do what any westerner can, just buy things in bulk from China. Even if you can't buy the exact part you can buy something that contains said part if you will and if it is that important to have it. Common components are everywhere so it might be hard to keep them away from them. If North Korea and Iran can keep these components flowing in there is probably nothing stopping Russia from doing the same.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 12 2022, @12:44AM
Bombing has some notorious examples where "good enough" isn't. For example, the debut of precision bombing was the Thanh Hoa bridge [wikipedia.org] in North Vietnam which was bombed numerous times by the US during the Vietnam War, and rendered uncrossable on the first try by laser-guided munitions. Presumably that Russian artillery is more accurate, but there are considerable gains to hitting closer. For example, with the HIMARS attacks, it could be the difference between blowing up an ammo depot, and alerting your enemy that you know about the ammo depot.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Thursday August 11 2022, @09:38AM (3 children)
Russian technology, especially military technology, is built with the doctrine in mind that it should take minimal technology and skill to build it. If you take a look at the AK, by all Western standards, that a joke. The whole rifle rattles and rumbles when you fire it because the error margins are SO huge that it's virtually impossible to get a decently accurate shot out of it. But that also means that precision when building it is by far not as important as with some Western rifles where a fraction of a millimeter already means that the rifle won't fire while with an AK, a part that is off by a millimeter or two is no biggie.
Also, I have seen AKs that were dug out of mud after staying there a couple days that would fire even without any cleaning. Try that with your AR-15. IIRC the recommended procedure if it happened to be covered in ice was to wrap it in a towel or blanket and then jump on it a couple times.
Russian technology is fairly crude. But easy to build, easy to maintain and easy to replace. Including the operator staff.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday August 11 2022, @02:34PM (2 children)
The whole Russian engineering school is based on "good enough" concept. They don't go for extremes like American ones often do. One is supposed to use the most common parts and the simplest technology possible for the task. It's everywhere, not only in military applications.
AK is an infamous example, but there are more. Right now in Ukraine Russian large caliber guns can do ten times more shots both per day and till the required maintenance, which is not even possible in over there. Yes, they are a bit less precise and somewhat shorter range, but "good enough". Oh, and they are 10 times cheaper.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fraxinus-tree on Thursday August 11 2022, @03:33PM
As someone profoundly used to soviet and russian tech, I would not vouch on the "cheaper" part. The point is, no one knows how much anything in the Russian economy costs, especially if it is made for military. They have an impressively complex web of cross-subsidies between the military and the civilian part of the economy. If you see this picture in depth, you can estimate ~20% of GDP going to military, far from any official value. And, also, the "good enough" principle works if you have import for tools and machines to make these "good enough" things. If you use "good enough" tools to make "good enough" products, you get rather low yield that drives the expenses up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12 2022, @09:59AM
> Yes, they are a bit less precise and somewhat shorter range, but "good enough".
Even the definition of "good enough" is "good enough", i.e. a bit faulty.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 11 2022, @04:33PM
Lots of fun hot takes in these comments considering several are explicitly debunked in the summary!
TI actually does primarily manufacture in the US. So no, there are not coming from China or Taiwan.
So they've been stocking up. That they were preparing for war AFTER invading Crimea should come as a shock to nobody! It does not indicate that they have a pipeline for new parts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12 2022, @12:26AM (2 children)
> In the West we often over-engineer things
Feel free to revert to any foreign shithole of your choice to see the other way. Things got how they got in the West because finally we got rid of enough corruption and corner cutting that shit kind-of works/ed for a while
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday August 12 2022, @04:16AM (1 child)
Now we have a different kind of corruption - with cost plus contracts that frequently double in the eventual price that has to be paid. The kind of corruption that means that our political representatives need to 'have their cut' of the money. I did not write in support of over-engineering, but you cannot argue that it has resulted in less corruption without providing some evidence to back up that claim.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12 2022, @11:28AM
> ... cost plus contracts that frequently double in the eventual price that has to be paid.
This is nothing new in USA. A relative worked in an independent R&D lab through the 1950s-70s, mostly gov't with some commercial work. It was standard operating procedure to low bid on big jobs--otherwise you would not get the job at all. Everyone expected (although it was never written!) that there would be follow-on contracts to complete the work.
In the 1990s my tiny company made a joint bid (with that same R&D group) on a non-military gov't project. We played it straight and quoted what we knew it would cost (about $3M). The job was won by another consortium who bid half what we did. Then they went double over budget to complete--so the cost to the taxpayer was the same in the end.
We did hear from the contract admin that our proposal was technically superior (we had already built similar systems). And we also found out that the eventual system was unsuitable for task--so in the end the taxpayer got nothing except keeping some smart folks employed for a couple of years.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Thursday August 11 2022, @09:31AM (7 children)
I wouldn't get my hopes up that sanctions will work considering that pretty much everything electronic that has a "made in the USA" stamp on it is actually originally made in China.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Thexalon on Thursday August 11 2022, @10:36AM (6 children)
As said in the classic film Armageddon:
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2022, @11:54AM (3 children)
> ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!
Hmmm, if China attacks Taiwan and ruins all the factories, does this bode well for peace...after current weapon stockpiles are depleted?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by legont on Thursday August 11 2022, @02:42PM (1 child)
Any advance military can stop Taiwan's chip production pretty much overnight. Probably even Comrade Kim.
China's challenge is to take them over without destroying.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2022, @04:15PM
Makes me wonder if those fabs aren't wired to blow like a James Bond villain's hideout at the end of the movie.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2022, @04:16PM
The machines that are inside the factories are manufactured elsewhere [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 11 2022, @04:35PM (1 child)
Wake me up when Russia builds the fabs to actually assemble those TI chips they're using. Those are all located in Texas....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12 2022, @01:42AM
Oh boy, we're gonna be in deep doodoo after Texas secedes from the Union.
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Thursday August 11 2022, @09:35AM
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/silicon-lifeline-western-electronics-heart-russias-war-machine [rusi.org]
Since journalists today are so fucking lazy and can't even link to the actual report they are referring to. The link is at the top of the page, pdf version, for download.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Thursday August 11 2022, @12:57PM
This information makes it unlikely that there are self destruct options available for said hardware, because those would probably already have been applied.
It would be nice to have options to disable your opponent's weapons (or other critical equipment) before or at the moment they're being used. Hackers would have fun with self destructing chips as well.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2022, @05:51PM
Crazy people kill people.
If we all carried more Western Parts, the world would be a lot safer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12 2022, @04:22PM
Export control was always a bit of a joke, especially for software where you only need one copy to get infinite illegal copies. For physical items you just need a few straw purchasers. These people are points of failure that can sometimes be prosecuted; but unless you're controlling a large limited production item (e.g., fighter jets, fully assembled bulky machines) export control is a joke. You aren't going to stop US versions of boxed CPUs from being used in Russia. There are way too many of them, and there are enough straw purchasers to get them through. You're effectively transferring a little bit of export duty to those people, and charging Russia a little bit of duty which is better than nothing I suppose.