How much West is in the Russian Orlan 10 drones
An investigation by Reuters and iStories has discovered the network through which chips, circuits and electric motors manage to pierce the mesh of the sanctions and reach the assembly line of the Russian Orlan 10 drones, responsible for the death of over 100 Ukrainian soldiers a day . The article by Marco Orioles
The Russian Orlan 10 drones with which Putin's army directs the deadly shots of his artillery on the target that massacre Ukrainian soldiers are also manufactured with Western components that arrive as far as Russia through a logistics chain made up of compliant exporters and able to evade the sanctions.
The Special Technology Center in St. Petersburg
It was an investigation conducted by Reuters and iStories , a Russian medium, in collaboration with the Royal United Service Institute of London to uncover the network through which chips, circuits and electric motors manage to pierce the mesh of sanctions and reach the line of assembly of the Orlan 10, located at the Special Technology Center in St. Petersburg.
Once specializing in manufacturing surveillance equipment for the Russian government, the Center is now focused on manufacturing drones for the military. Already sanctioned by the Obama administration due to its role in trying to influence the 2016 US presidential elections, the Center can now no longer strictly receive Western-made components due to the new sanctions introduced by the US after the invasion of Ukraine .
The first compliant exporter: Asia Pacific Links
By analyzing customs records and traces of payments made, Reuters and iStories were able to document the role of a Hong Kong-based exporter called Asia Pacific Links, which supplied the Special Technology Center with sophisticated parts.
Asia Pacific Links' exports benefited from a single St. Petersburg importer, Ilogic, who has close ties to the Center to the point of sharing its address.
This year has been an export boom for Asia Pacific: between March 1 and September 30, it exported parts valued at $5.2 million, more than double what the company exported in the same period in 2021.
Among the components that Asia Pacific has moved to Russia are $1.8 million worth of chips made by Analog Devices, $641,000 worth of chips made by Texas Instruments, and $238,000 worth of chips made by Xiliax.
But there are not only components made in the USA: among the components delivered by Asia Pacific to Ilogic there are also the micromotors manufactured by a Japanese company, Saito Seisakusho, which the photos taken on the battlefields show are incorporated into the Orlan 10.
Since 2017, Ilogic has imported 70 million dollars of electronic parts into Russia, mostly destined for the St. Petersburg Center, which has the Russian Defense Ministry as its largest customer, which between February and August of this year carried out payments to the Center worth $99 million.
Florida based exporter
Among the surprises of this joint investigation there is also the identification of an exporter based on the south coast of Florida, IK Tech, which between 2018 and 2021 sold electronic components to Russia for a value of 2.2 million dollars, over 90% of which went to Ilogic.
Customs data shows in particular that between October 2020 and the same month of the following year, IK Tech sold about 1,000 American circuit boards manufactured by a Californian company called Gumstix for a value of 274 thousand dollars.
The photos taken by Ukrainian officers on the drones captured from the Russians show a Gumstix circuit inside them.
Shortly before the invasion of Ukraine was triggered and the Orlan drones invaded its skies, the activities of IK Tech had attracted the attention of the American authorities who proceeded to arrest the founder, a forty-one year old with dual Russian and US citizenship from name Igor Kazhdan.
Among the charges against Kazhdan there is also the export to Russia, without the appropriate license, of sophisticated amplifiers made by the US company Qorbo, which are often used in military radio and radar equipment. Again it was discovered that amplifiers are used in the assembly of the Orlan 10.
Kazhdan faced 40 years in prison, but the federal judge eventually handed him a lighter sentence and a negligible fine.
Intercepted by Reuters reporters, Kazhdan refused to talk about his dealings with Russia, saying his story isn't all that relevant. “This is just comical,” Kazhdan said. But with the Orlan 10-facilitated bombing killing more than 100 Ukrainian soldiers a day according to Reuters , there's no joking around.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/quanto-occidente-ce-nei-droni-russi-orlan-10/ on Sun, 18 Dec 2022 09:19:07 +0000.