Tighter export controls on electronics could hamper Russia’s war effort, report finds

Tighter export controls would prevent Russia’s military from operating the high-tech weapons and communications systems it has been using in Ukraine, according to a report by the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi).

Moscow has found ways to bypass sanctions and export controls, however, if the loopholes were closed, Russia’s military might be permanently degraded.

Researchers for Rusi, a UK think tank, spent months in Ukraine, examining 27 of Russia’s most modern military systems, either captured, brought down or abandoned by Russian troops. They discovered at least 450 different kinds of unique, foreign-made components, most built in the US but also in other Western countries.

Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at Rusi, told the BBC there was the option of denying Russia access to these sensitive components.

“If these components can be denied then the Russians will not be able to replenish the arsenal of equipment that they have expended in Ukraine,” Dr Watling says.

He pointed to Russia’s heavy reliance on artillery, missiles and rockets that have devastated the towns and villages of eastern Ukraine and allowed Russian ground forces to make slow, incremental advances through the wartorn countryside.

“The Russian system of fighting is largely dependent on what’s called reconnaissance strike: finding your targets and then hitting them with overwhelming firepower,” he says. “And what we found is that almost every link in that chain is dependent on Western components.”

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