Key Points – Almost four years into the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian intelligence says Russia is still quietly importing the machine tools and components it needs to keep churning out missiles, glide bombs, and artillery.
-A new GUR report, built in part from an OSINT “hackathon” and hosted on the War & Sanctions platform, traces Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese CNC systems into key Russian plants producing UMPK glide-bomb kits, mortar stabilizers and Iskander-class missiles.
Main battle tank T-14 object 148 on heavy unified tracked platform Armata. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Biggest Enemy: Sanctions –Despite sweeping sanctions, this illicit supply chain remains largely intact.
-One retired U.S. intelligence official puts it bluntly: progress is real, but “in the wrong direction” – Moscow’s access is growing, not shrinking.
Russia’s Sanctions Problem: How Putin Still Gets the Parts to Build Missiles
Three years and nine months since the Russian military invaded Ukraine, Moscow’s defense plants continue to receive a plethora of foreign-made components and military-grade production systems and machine tools.
These are all being used to support the production of Russian missile systems, glide bombs, and ammunition.
These are the findings in a recent report from the Ukraine Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR).
The document reveals new evidence that Moscow retains what appears to be unimpeded access to these vital industrial inputs, despite a global, multinational set of sanctions specifically designed to prevent it.
The November 17-dated document is just one in a series of reports on this subject that offer periodic updates on progress in this still-ineffective sanctions regime.
Looking at the available evidence has prompted one retired US intelligence official who spoke to National Security Journal to comment that “there is progress all right. It is just in the wrong direction. Moscow seems to be gaining more rather than less access to the defense industrial technology that they need to keep building the weapons that are killing Ukrainian civilians night after night.”
The intelligence service’s investigators have identified particular industrial machine tools not of Russian origin as the key to continued Russian production of air-launched weapons. They are used in the manufacture of glide-bomb kits (UMPK, in its Russian acronym), missile components, and artillery munitions.
These findings are all currently accessible on the War & Sanctions platform. The details were reportedly uncovered and compiled by a number of computer experts who participated in an OSINT hackathon organized to mark the portal’s first anniversary.
T-14 Armata Tank from Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
What The Investigation Uncovered
The number, type, and variety of the systems that Russia is still able to procure through illicit channels “should be an embarrassment to all of these allied nations,” said the same retired intelligence official.
Among the technologies that Russian industry is making extensive use of are:
-Japanese and Chinese computerized numerical control (CNC) technology used on Russian glide-bomb production lines: The GUR analysts identified the Japanese firm Okuma and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Hision machine tool systems as extensively used at manufacturing facilities of the Russian Tactical Missiles Corporation (KRTV).
-Among other systems, KRTV uses this equipment to manufacture UMPK kits that convert dumb bombs into precision glide bombs. These are not unlike the bomb kits manufactured by Boeing in the US for the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM).
-In other weaponry, it was discovered that equipment acquired from the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan was used to produce mortar stabilizers. The Russian Central Research Institute (TsNII) “Burevestnik” operates these vertical machining centers, known under the commercial name “Performa.”
The ROC firm AKIRA SEIKI produces this machine tool system. The Russian research entity uses it to produce stabilizing elements for mortar rounds.
Major Acquisitions
Unfortunately for the Ukrainians, foreign machine tools are regularly delivered to Russia – again in violation of sanctions – even well after the full-scale invasion.
The most recent data obtained by the GUR investigators reveals previously unknown procurement records. This documentation shows that since 2022, Russian companies have been supplying the Votkinsk Plant with Chinese KEDE and WMT machines, as well as the Taiwanese CNC milling centers ECOM VL-12i. The plant is a significant production line for the Iskander ballistic missile and other cruise missiles.
Su-27 Flanker Fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The GUR states that these findings are now being utilized to plug holes in the various sanction proposals and restrict Moscow’s ability to sustain high-volume weapons manufacturing.
“The GUR is doing fine work,” said the retired US intel official. “The problem I have is that we have heard all of this for more than two years now. Choking off Moscow’s supply of these essential inputs and machinery that underpin its missile industry is always ‘just around the corner.’ But we never seem to reach that corner – wherever and whenever it is.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of the Asia Research Centre at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
