Russia imported more than a billion dollars worth of advanced American and European chips in 2023, despite restrictions that were supposed to prevent the Russian military from acquiring technology to fuel the war in Ukraine.
Source. Bloomberg writes about this with reference to classified data from Russian customs.
The publication found out that Russia spent $1.7 billion on chips that can be used to produce tanks and missiles. Most of these products were manufactured by 20 companies, including American Intel, AMD and Analog Devices, as well as European Infineon Technologies, STMicroelectronics and NXP Semiconductors.
Also among the chip manufacturers purchased by Russia are several Chinese companies and the Taiwanese company Realtek Semiconductor. The publication writes that imports to Russia are usually from third countries: China, Turkey and the UAE.
Last fall, the Biden administration announced the suspension of supplies to China and Russia of new chips developed by Nvidia and other American tech giants. In this way, the US government is trying to prevent Beijing from obtaining advanced American technology to strengthen its armed forces.
Earlier, under the Biden administration, the US Department of Commerce introduced a new rule that could block the export of software for designing chips and creating next-generation chips.
Background. As it became known from the investigation, German, American, British and other Western companies supply military goods to Russia. For procurement, they use shell companies – mostly legal entities from China.