Russia is using Western weapons in Ukraine.

Millennium7* History & Technology

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00:00A group of Ukrainian vehicles, tanks and transports is massing few kilometers off the zero line

00:08because this is how they call the line of contact.

00:11They are preparing for a local counter-attack.

00:14What they don't know though is that a Russian Orlan-10 drone is watching them.

00:21The Russian operator zooms in, identifies soldiers and vehicles as effectively an enemy

00:28unit, he calculates the coordinates and then he radios the targeting data in to the local

00:34artillery headquarter with his 1-6-8 Aktoduk radio.

00:39A fire mission is assigned to a battery of Tornado 300S.

00:44These are 300mm MLRS firing rockets guided by the GPS and featuring mid-course correction.

00:53The Orlan operator keeps watching the Ukrainian till multiple explosions erupt around them.

01:02This is a generic description of something that must have happened hundreds of times in Ukraine.

01:06Yes, because despite all the initial issues and all the subsequent issues that the Russian

01:13ground forces have demonstrated, yet this kind of mission is always executed very efficiently

01:21by the Russian artillery.

01:22The reason being they are using NATO standard equipment.

01:27Ok, that's a dramatization obviously, but let me explain.

01:34A few months ago I spent some of the money that very generously patrons, members and

01:41other donors give to the channel.

01:44And I spent that money to become a RUSI member.

01:47For those who don't know, RUSI is a British think-tank covering military obviously, but

01:53also geo-strategic issues.

01:56A few weeks ago RUSI published a long report about western electronic components in Russian

02:02weapons focusing in particular on semiconductors.

02:08And it was a shock.

02:10So a RUSI team could examine captured equipment or parts that survived the explosions or the

02:18wrecks in search for western electronic components.

02:23And what they could find was unexpected.

02:25Or better, the presence of some western components was indeed expected.

02:31It is well known that Soviet Union but also Russia have always been very engaged in intelligence

02:39activities to acquire western technology.

02:44And since the fall of the Soviet Union it has become easier for the Russian to actually

02:49import components for perfectly legitimate purposes.

02:54It was only reasonable to assume that some of them could have found their way into their

03:00military equipment despite all the checks and controls and regulations.

03:05What surprised pretty much everyone was the scale.

03:09The RUSI team could examine 27 modern Russian pieces of equipment and they found 450 different

03:19types of western and Asian components, many of them essential components for the weapon

03:27or the system.

03:29The small dramatization at the beginning, which was actually inspired by the RUSI report

03:35is a good example of this situation.

03:37The Orleans camera is a Sony.

03:40It is mounted on a gimbal produced by the American Hextronics.

03:44The autopilot is built around a microcontroller produced by the Italo-French ST Microelectronics.

03:51And the engine is a Japanese model aircraft engine.

03:56The Akveduk radio contains a microcontroller from the American analog devices and a DSP

04:02from Texas Instruments.

04:04The rockets fired by the Tornado S contain western FPGAs and RAM modules.

04:11And the list goes on and on and on.

04:13And if you read the report there are several examples that demonstrate how the presence

04:19of western components is really pervasive in Russian weapons.

04:24Even the most modern and the most effective are not immune.

04:29Just another example.

04:30The Kh-101, which is the elective weapon of the beautiful Tu-160 White Swan, has demonstrated

04:39to be very effective in Ukraine and very precise and quite reliable.

04:43While most of the key components of the guidance system are of western origin.

04:49And many of these components were already covered by export limitations before 2014.

04:57The RUSI report goes in great detail into explaining how the Russians did procure these

05:03components.

05:04It was done setting up commercial businesses and intermediaries all around the world.

05:09Actually, some of the components that have been found were relatively easy.

05:15There were generic commercial components whose military use was not strictly controlled.

05:20Others though were military-grade components or dual-use components built according to

05:27military specifications.

05:29This demonstrates how it is practically impossible to control the flow of these components when

05:36they are out in the market.

05:38Experts can always find a way around rules and regulations.

05:43Anyway, we have news that the Russians, since the beginning of the war, are scrambling to

05:48procure all the components that they can put their hands on.

05:52They are continuously setting up new logistic chains in foreign countries just to procure

05:58these critical components.

06:00And this brings us to the key question.

06:04Will Russia be able to support the war effort by producing an adequate quantity of high

06:11technology weapons?

06:13Well, as usual, the answer is...

06:16It's complicated.

06:43First thing to notice is that the flip side of the presence of many important western

06:54components is that all the others are not western.

06:58In fact, Russia and Belarus do have the capability of producing semiconductors.

07:05Albeit, obviously, there is a technology gap with the West and an even bigger gap with

07:11Taiwan.

07:12In fact, it is not by chance that Russian components tend to be larger, heavier and

07:19less power efficient than western components when implementing the same capability.

07:25In very general terms, we can say that the raw processing power is usually lower, so

07:32this needs to be compensated with different architectures.

07:37This is one of the reasons why western components were used in place of developing indigenous

07:43ones.

07:45But there is another and more subtle reason.

07:48Many of the weapons that we see in Ukraine now have been designed in the 90s and early

07:542000s.

07:56This was the time when Russia underwent the shock of transitioning from the Soviet-style

08:02economy to a market economy.

08:04It was a terrible time for Russia.

08:06The Russian population suffered enormously.

08:09But it was a time when the contrast with the West was at its historic low.

08:16So designers at the time thought that they could access these western components without

08:22too much difficulty for the near future.

08:25In the economic science, this is a handbook case of comparative advantages.

08:30Why build something better in-house when it was relatively easy to buy it abroad?

08:36Obviously now we know that this attitude backfired.

08:39In the aftermath of the 2014 events, Russia enacted a legislation to reduce its dependency

08:47on international commerce.

08:49This has been successfully enacted in several industries and it is one of the reasons why

08:54the current sanctions seem to have an impact that is lower than expected.

08:58However, this was not the case for semiconductors and the electronic industry in general.

09:05Semiconductors are the product of a very high-tech industry.

09:10There are very few specialized manufacturers that basically dominate the field.

09:15Building a foundry, I mean the actual factory that produces the semiconductors, requires

09:22large investments but is not that difficult.

09:27The high technology though is in the equipment required by the foundry.

09:33The software to design the semiconductors or the lithography machines that are a key

09:39step of the production process are really built by a very small number of producers.

09:48You can count them on your hand and you will say fingers.

09:52If access to those technologies is cut, if access to those suppliers is cut, it is extremely

10:00difficult to replicate those technologies.

10:04For example, China has heavily heavily invested in the attempt of catching up with the top

10:11brands and the results are hit and miss.

10:14Now, when imports become unavailable, substitutions kick in.

10:18This is an uncontroversial economic fact.

10:22The point is how long it's going to take.

10:25Everything else being equal, that is in constance of the kind of loose alliance that Russia

10:31has with China, then probably the two countries are at least a couple of decades away from

10:39technology parity with the West and Taiwan and probably another decade away before production

10:48grade semiconductors could trickle into the industry and into the actual products.

10:54And obviously we all hope that the war will be over much sooner.

10:59So, most likely, this technology evolution won't be a factor in the Ukrainian events.

11:05So there is another possibility, that is an extensive redesign of these weapons to use

11:12only Russian or Chinese components.

11:15In fact, weapons that in 2014 were in a sufficiently early development stage have been re-engineered

11:25with an eye to the availability of the electronic components.

11:29This is the case, for example, of the Suhoi-57 or the Sarmat ICBM.

11:35Most of the systems, though, have deeper roots, they were already designed, they were already

11:42in production and it was too late to do this kind of replacement activity, if it is materially

11:49possible.

11:50Considering the situation, the Russians may well decide that a redesign is due, but this

11:56is going to take time and for the most complex systems easily take years.

12:03So, if I had to guess, we might see some signs of this kind of redesign, re-engineering,

12:11maybe at some point next year, but it's going to take time.

12:17And again, we all hope that the war is going to end well in advance.

12:22So, at the end, we are left with just one possibility, the Russians are going to do

12:26everything they can to procure these Western components, stockpile them for the future

12:33and use them for the production till something else is going to happen.

12:39Until that redesign that we have already mentioned is going to happen or till there

12:45is some technology progress, we are probably going to see the same weapons with the same

12:50components and when those components will be missed and the production will be urgent,

12:56we will see makeshift solutions just to fill the gap.

13:01And we will see if this is enough to support the war effort.

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