Despite strict sanctions imposed by the United States preventing semiconductor shipments to Russia, Russian weapons discovered on Ukrainian battlefields purportedly have an alarming amount of U.S.-manufactured chips inside. Bloomberg revealed a variety of records on how Russia has been able to purchase U.S.-based chips, unbeknownst to the U.S.-based chip makers themselves.
Russia’s military is reportedly using third parties to purchase U.S.-based electronic products from Texas Instruments Inc., and some of these intermediaries are even comprised of companies that are under U.S. sanctions. These chips are purportedly used to assist in the production of “…drones, glide bombs, precision communication systems and the Iskander missiles that Moscow uses to hammer Ukraine’s cities.”
