Western companies continue to supply Russia with components for Orlan-10 drones, which it uses in the war against Ukraine.
This is stated in an investigation by the Russian publication "Vazhnye istorii" ["Important Stories"] carried out jointly with Reuters and the British Institute for Defense Studies.
Orlan-10 has been manufactured by the "Special Technological Center" (STC) company since 2014. However, in fact, this drone consists entirely of foreign microelectronics, only the body is made of Russian. The company itself is under sanctions "for helping the Main Directorate of Intelligence" (MDI) in electronic intelligence.
The journalists found out that the company buys some of the components from the Russian Citilink network, from January to May 2022, approximately 300 million rubles were spent on this. The main supplier of foreign components is the company SMT-Ilogic. Since 2017, SMT-Ilogic has imported approximately $70 million worth of components to Russia. At the same time, STC is the main buyer, in 2021 it provided almost 80% of the revenue.
One of the intermediaries and main suppliers of components for SMT-Ilogic is the Hong Kong company Asia Pacific Links, the owner of which is the Russian Anton Trofimov. The companyʼs unmarked office is located in a ramshackle building in Hong Kong. At the buildingʼs reception, it was confirmed to journalists that the company rents a room with three other tenants. According to the employees, one "foreigner" sometimes comes to the building. Since 2017, Asia Pacific Links has supplied SMT-Ilogic with $12 million worth of components, more than half of this amount during the period of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Ihor Kazhdanʼs (Alex Stanton) Ik Tech company from Florida acts as an American intermediary. The man, who has citizenship of both Russia and the United States, admitted that he supplied electronic components to Russia. From 2018 to 2021, his company delivered $2.2 million worth of goods to the Russian Federation, more than 90% of which were orders from SMT-Ilogic.
In February, even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kazhdan was arrested on charges of smuggling military and dual purpose products. According to him, Russia induced him to supply products to bypass the restrictions.
- Earlier, the Reuters agency reported that despite the sanctions, Western countries continue to supply microchips to Russia.