Kremlin forces Russian mafia abroad to supply semiconductors to Russia - The Economist

The imposition of international sanctions that cut Russia off from modern technology has forced Moscow to turn to the Russian mafia abroad. The Kremlin has intensified its ties with organized crime and ordered its representatives to transfer part of their income to "black accounts" to finance the activities of Russian spies.

Source. Mark Galeotti, an expert on international crime and intelligence services, told The Economist.

According to him, criminals are also recruited to circumvent sanctions, in particular to organize the supply of semiconductors that Russia needs for military purposes.

The Russian invasion caused serious damage to Russia's spy network abroad. This happened as a result of the mass expulsion of spies working under diplomatic cover and the arrest of agents in Europe, says Antti Pelttari, director of Finland's foreign intelligence service.

The Kremlin is trying to compensate for the losses in its spy network by relying on cyber-espionage and sending new spies to the West disguised as refugees, but they have little training, experience, or sources of information, Western officials say.

A separate problem for Russia is access to microchips and semiconductors that the US, EU and other developed countries have banned from being supplied to Moscow. Due to the lack of modern electronics, the Russian defense industry cannot compensate for the loss of equipment in Ukraine. This applies to both missiles and tanks, writes The Economist.

However, Moscow is looking for ways to circumvent sanctions. For example, last fall, the son of the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Artem Uss, was detained in Milan. The U.S. authorities accused him of using a shell company with other Russians to purchase American electronics used in fighter jets, missile systems, intelligent munitions, radars, satellites, and other military developments.

The company was based in Hamburg, Germany, and the purchased goods were shipped to end users in Russia. Later, components supplied under this scheme were found in Russian military equipment captured on the battlefield in Ukraine.

The newspaper also writes that the invasion disrupted the long-standing ties between the Ukrainian mafia and the Russian mafia.

Odesa was a key node in a vast criminal network centered in Ukraine and Russia that stretched from Afghanistan to the Andes. It was part of "the strongest criminal ecosystem in Europe," according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (gitoc) think tank.

The Russian invasion hit this underworld with the force of an earthquake. The vast majority of Ukrainian mafiosi stopped cooperating with their Russian "colleagues":

"We are thieves, we are against any state, but we have decided that we are for Ukraine," says one. The lucrative heroin smuggling routes are changing, affecting prices and profits for criminal syndicates thousands of kilometers away. If the disruption proves to be long-lasting, it could change the face of global crime. It will also change Ukraine, the publication writes.

Background. As it became known, Germany is massively expelling Russian diplomats, and in response, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced a "mirror" expulsion. German security authorities believe that there are about 160 Russian intelligence officers in the country.