Western technology is high-quality and sought-after, Putin also knows this. EPA-EFE/SERGEI GUNEYEV, Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/Shutterstock/All Over Press
Sanctions imposed by Western countries to export technology to Russia do not seem to be fully effective as thought. Technology subject to sanctions is imported through so-called friendly countries, without the permission of the producers. Reported about it Times.
Technology is brought into the country through middlemen from, for example, China and the former Soviet states. In addition to this, Turkey, a member of the NATO defense alliance, has also traded with Russia. There have also been rumors in Russia that Turkey would like to leave the defense alliance. However, the rumors have been squashed by Turkey’s ruling party.
Turkey only started blocking the export of sanctioned products to Russia this month. According to the Russian news agency Kommersant, Western products worth a total of 738 million dollars were transported from Turkey to Russia in August of last year alone.
By the end of October last year, a total of 2.6 billion dollars worth of information technology and various components had been shipped to Russia over the course of seven months. Almost a third of these are Western technologies that have also ended up being used by Russian weapon systems. Reuters reported about this in December.
Semiconductor chips from Kazakhstan and China
Russia’s missile industry is dependent on Western semiconductor chips. Even in the war in Ukraine, the semiconductor chips required by the cruise missiles used by Russia are one of the most significant targets of the sanctions. Western chips are of high quality, and Russia has not succeeded in developing its own version of these.
Kazakhstan’s export of semiconductor chips to Russia increased 300 times last year compared to the situation before the war. Last year, the value of semiconductor chips exported by Kazakhstan to Russia was 3.7 million dollars.
– Our administration does not accept the evasion of sanctions imposed by Western powers, the US foreign minister Anthony Blinken stated last month during a state visit to Kazakhstan.
The expansion of sanctions to Kazakhstan would be a big blow to their economy. The state has said that it will increase the number of checkpoints at the border in order to stop the transportation of products subject to sanctions to Russia.
China also supplies the country with a lot of technology. However, according to Kommersant, 40 percent of the semiconductor chips supplied by China are substandard.
Goods for consumers
The Russian online store Ozon.ru promises consumers the latest Apple iPhones with two-hour delivery, even though the company has banned the sale of its products. Earlier this month, Russia banned Apple phones from officials running in the 2024 presidential election.
Iltalehti confirmed the trade situation. In Ozon, the retailer of Apple products operates under the name Digital world. Behind this is a company called Shenzhen Weiyi Trading located in Guangdong, China. The same company has operations on the Chinese online marketplace Alibaba.
Western products are also imported through the Hong Kong company Pochta Global. Products from, for example, Nike and H&M are still imported through them. Other western products imported into the country include furniture from Ikea and products from the luxury brands Giorgio Armani and Yves Saint Laurent.
The Kremlin has also instructed citizens to download Western movies in order to bankrupt Netflix and other Western streaming services. However, the streaming service Netflix stopped its operations in Russia already in February of last year.