A group of American journalists claims to have uncovered supply chains for Western high-tech components to Russia, bypassing sanctions imposed against Russia after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine. A corresponding article on the results of the investigation by reporters, who refer to the analysis of emails from foreign trade missions of the Russian Federation and Russian telecommunications companies, was published in The New York Times newspaper. The experts concluded that Russia used many foreign intermediaries and publicly available e-commerce sites for these purposes.
The journalists gave several examples of how Russian companies managed to arrange the supply of electronic components and equipment of Western production despite the ban on their import into the Russian Federation. In particular, the Internet provider from Yekaterinburg, Convex, faced problems importing telecommunications equipment manufactured by the American Cisco corporation after March 3 last year.
However, Convex engineers easily obtained the Cisco equipment they needed through a little-known Russian e-commerce site called Nag, which circumvented international trade restrictions by purchasing American equipment through a network of suppliers in China. Moreover, American-made switches were installed in the Yekaterinburg branch of the FSB of Russia, the authors claim.
Journalists write that the Russian authorities and private IT companies have teamed up to take advantage of shortcomings and various loopholes in international trade, as a result, they quite easily restored purchases of banned electronics, microchips and other Western-made components. They connected to networks of intermediaries, including in China, Morocco and Turkey, which did not join the anti-Russian restrictions of the West. In addition, Russian companies used ports in these countries to receive goods from global technological production centers, which were simply reloaded onto other ships bound for Russia.
— American journalists "expose" our entrepreneurs and government agencies.
If there were problems with one of the suppliers, they quickly found a replacement. When the delivery route was blocked, new ones took its place. Thus, Russian traders "stayed one step ahead" of US efforts to curb exports of high-tech products to Russia, the authors of the article conclude. Cisco refrained from commenting on their request about this, and Convex ignored the reporters' questions altogether.
— concludes Elina Rybakova, an analyst at the American Peterson Institute of International Economics.
She believes that efforts alone at the level of Western states to limit exports of high-tech products to the Russian Federation are not enough. Large Western manufacturing companies should also exercise control.
In Morocco, Russia's trade representative office, which protects the country's economic interests abroad, has also helped Russian companies regain their positions. In particular, such assistance was provided to ProSoft, a leading Russian distributor of equipment and software for process automation. The Russian trade mission organized transit to the Russian Federation for an IT company of prohibited electronics through the mediation of the state port Tanger Med.
By November 2022, Russian trade officials in Morocco boasted that their "direct support" had turned the African country into an electronics transshipment hub. Goods from Taiwan, China and other manufacturing centers were unloaded at Tanger Med, and then placed on other ships bound for Russia, the journalists write. An analysis of ProSoft's offerings revealed about 300 products for sale containing Intel chips, as well as Nvidia-made components and a computer chip optimized for artificial intelligence developed by Google.
Journalists have found many such examples of effective circumvention of Western sanctions in terms of purchases by Russian companies of American, European, South Korean and Japanese high-tech components and equipment, the export of which to the Russian Federation is prohibited in these countries. Moreover, these products are also used in Russia for the production of weapons, the authors claim.
— reporters write with reference to military experts.