Sanctions Circumvention in Russia Rampant, Think Tank Fellow Says

A senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the dissection of Russian military equipment used in the Ukraine war frequently uncovers Western-made microchips.

Maria Snegovaya, senior fellow with the CSIS Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program, told reporters this week that while export controls constrained Russia for a while, then it found new suppliers. "Its huge land border with many countries of Central Asia, the Caucasus, as well as, of course, China, [allowed Russia to] more or less fully substitute for the important Western-produced goods."

"Export controls are now circumvented left and right, and we really cannot talk any more of them working," she said at a briefing Feb. 14.

China has provided goods Russia can no longer buy from Europe or the U.S., including cars, consumer goods and chips. Trade with China in 2023 grew 26% from 2022, she said.

Russia is "ramping up domestic production of weapons, including tanks, rocket launchers, artillery, and missiles, by more than twofold, and in some instances by more than tenfold. Therefore, it can -- one can hardly describe the sanctions as success."