Turkey is a key transshipment hub for European-made dual-use goods to Russia, according to a report by the Centre for Advanced Defence Studies (C4ADS), a Washington-based non-profit global security organisation.
C4ADS calls Turkey the "Achilles' heel" of Western sanctions against Russia, which are designed to stop the supply of military technology to the country.
The organisation's report focuses on the supply of CNC (computer numerical control) machines, a high-tech dual-purpose equipment used to create various military goods, such as weapon casings and aircraft parts.
Russia is highly dependent on foreign CNC machines, especially European ones, the report notes.
Despite attempts to replace them with domestic production, it will take many years for Russia to make its own machines competitive.
Before the invasion of Ukraine, the largest suppliers of CNC machines to Russia were Germany and Italy.
C4ADS analysed trade and corporate reports from Russia and Turkey, as well as Russian procurement data. In doing so, the organisation checked deliveries in which one of the European countries was listed as the manufacturer of the goods and Turkey as the sender.
The analysis showed that the Turkish company Jacbac Technology Dis Ticaret Limited Sirketi (Jacbac Technology) sent at least 24 shipments to Russia from September 2022 to December 2023, containing European-made CNC machines.
These shipments are labelled as "new machines" in Russian trade records, with some of them marked as manufactured in 2023. Based on this, C4ADS concludes that the machines were most likely shipped from the EU recently, i.e. in violation of the sanctions regime.
The Russian trade data also contains information on numerous shipments identified by the model numbers of five-axis CNC machines (used, for example, in the production of aircraft parts). In the EU, these machines have long been recognised as dual-use technology.
Jacbac Technology shipped these machines to two Russian recipients, who appeared in Russian trade records as "recipients of goods". The machines were sent via Turkey to Russia – the military-industrial contractor Umac and the company Avbis.
At the same time, the Russian trade data does not contain information on how these goods ended up in Turkey. Turkish data also does not clearly describe how Jacbac Technology imported the goods.
Another Turkish company, Mertege, imported at least nine consignments of machine tools of European origin. Of these, six consignments contained CNC machines from companies in Germany and Sweden.
Although Avbis is listed as a Russian company in Russia's trade records, Turkish documents list Kazakhstan as the country of destination for the shipment – an unspecified model of a five-axis machining centre weighing 8,500 kg and worth 142,000 euros. This potentially indicates that the shipment was a "ghost export," C4ADS said.
Turkey's largest manufacturer Jacbac Technology was added to the US sanctions list in November 2023. As explained by the US Treasury Department, the company has been supplying dozens of equipment to Russia since August 2022, citing metalworking tools and lathes as examples.