Witnesses warned lawmakers at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing on Feb. 27 that U.S.-made technology is getting into Russian military hands and weaponry despite sanctions in place aimed at preventing that from happening.
Since the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the U.S. has imposed numerous sanctions on Russia organizations and individuals connected to the Kremlin and its military. Most recently, the White House rolled out a new set of technology sanctions against Russian companies and leaders after the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
However, these sanctions have not been effective in preventing American-made technology from reaching the battlefield and being used against Ukraine.
It’s “quite shocking that despite all of the rhetoric of the Russian government about input, import substitution and independence, they rely on our technology to build systems that are designed to threaten us and our allies,” said James Byrne, director of the Open-Source Intelligence and Analysis Research Group at Royal United Services Institute — a United Kingdom-based research organization.
Specifically, advanced microchips produced using U.S. tech have been found in a range of Russian weapons from drones to missiles to armored vehicles. According to a January 2024 Bloomberg report, despite U.S. and allied sanctions Russia imported more than $1 billion of advanced chips from the U.S. and Europe from January to September 2023.
The White House has made instituting export bans on semiconductors and boosting domestic manufacturing of semiconductor chips a pivotal part of U.S. national security strategy in an effort to keep them from getting into the hands of adversarial nations.
“American manufacturers are fueling and supporting the growing and gargantuan Russian war machine and they are used in missiles, drones, munitions, and other weapons of war,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. “The Russians are relying on American technology. Our sanctions system is a sieve, our export control regime is lethally ineffective, and something has to be done.”
Several of the witnesses said that export bans are difficult to enforce effectively and will require more buy-in from companies to track where their shipments are heading.
“They know that it’s a significant issue. And if I were them, obviously I would be looking at my internal compliance departments and I would be thinking, ‘how far can I trace them? What can we do to improve our visibility in our supply chain?’” said Damien Spleeters, deputy director of operations at Conflict Armament Research, an organization that tracks weapons and how they get to battlefields through supply chains.
Sen. Blumenthal called for American technology regulators to step up their enforcement efforts after all the recent findings about the ineffectiveness of sanctions and export bans.
“The companies have a share of responsibility, maybe a predominant share, but obviously the enforcers have accountability as well, and they have tough questions to answer. We’re going to be asking very serious questions of the companies and of the United States agencies that are responsible for enforcement and will leave no stone unturned,” said Sen. Blumenthal.
During the hearing some Republican lawmakers highlighted their desire to shift U.S. strategy away from helping Ukraine in its military efforts and toward easing tensions and finding an end to the conflict.
“We need to recognize reality,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, R- Wis., ranking member of the subcommittee. “Vladimir Putin is not going to lose this war. I don’t like that reality, but he’s not. For us to say our war aim is to degrade Russia’s military capability, well they’re building up.”
