How the Russian bought $250,000 worth of military technology from New York
In late June 2019 Yuri Orekhov A Russian man named is meeting with a representative of a California-based consulting and logistics company at a hotel in Europe. Orekhov, one of the owners of a German company that sells industrial equipment, a Russian Sukhoi fighter to a Californian businessman plane says he wants to buy American spare parts for
USA According to the indictment unsealed by the federal government last week, Orekhov told an unnamed businessman that the documents needed to be falsified. Orekhov said that USAIn order to circumvent export bans, the documents must show that the buyer is a fake Malaysian company.
Not long ago, Orekhov’s Russian employee contacted the businessman and said “tactical weather navigation trackers, multi-module receivers, … two-terminal military sensitive including temperature transformers”. military asked for help in purchasing technologies.
USA government states that this sale did not take place. However, other sales deals that Orekhov’s company was seeking have come true. 2018-2020Orekhov’s company received $250,000 in five transactions from a New York company military bought technology.
In the indictment dated September 26, but released last week, Orekhov and four others Russia citizens are accused of building a complex and multi-year scheme to seize US military technology and evade export bans.
This document reveals that Russia has been scrambling for years, sometimes decades, to acquire Western technology and military equipment that it could not afford. This includes everything from night vision goggles for soldiers to computer chips for advanced fighter jets.
How successful the efforts are is another matter. According to news reports and military analysts, such sensitive Western technologies Russia widely used in military equipment.
“Russia’s decades-long multi-billion dollar military modernization program is the United States, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France and German manufacturing depended on microelectronics,” – says a report published in August by the London-based Royal United Services Institute.
Orekhov on October 17 in Germany imprisonment was done. US prosecutors say they will seek his extradition.
The US states that the indictment against Orekhov and his patrons was partially seized in Ukraine Russia developed on the basis of detection of US technologies in the equipment. These technologies were obtained from several US companies that Orekhov applied to.
“Here, the accusation is simply related to a type of sanctions evasion. North Korea and Syria do it too. Setting up a fake company in Dubai is not a new or smart idea. It’s not just about Russia.” – Former US Treasury Department Sanctions Officer Brian O’Toole he says.
For years, the Kremlin has realized that dependence on Western technology is its army’s Achilles heel. Modernizing the country’s economy, attracting more investment in entrepreneurship in the field of computers and high technologies was the main motive of the “Skolkovo” project. “Skolkovo” 20Back in the late 00s the president Dmitry Medvedevwas created under the control of
Some time ago, the FBI issued a warning about this project, saying that foreign governments could use private companies to seize important technologies.
In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula belonging to Ukraine and of Ukraine cooperation with the West was terminated after the creation of a separatist conflict center in the eastern Donbas region. The West imposed harsh sanctions against Russia.
The Kremlin decided to reduce its military’s dependence on Western technologies. Until then, the Russian military industry was heavily dependent on Western technology obtained through legal and illegal means.
Since 2019, government officials have set specific goals to reduce Russia’s dependence on Western spare parts for everything from submarines to radar and missile systems, Bloomberg reported, citing an internal Russian government document.
However, according to “Bloomberg”, this document dated April 2021 indicated that this plan failed.
In a report by the Royal United Services Institute, researchers wrote that they found “at least 450 unique foreign-made components” in 27 of Russia’s most advanced military systems. These military systems include cruise missiles, communication systems and electronic weapons complexes.
In the investigation of the Russian service of RFE/RL, it is shown that French-owned thermal imaging arrays are used in the vision function of Russian-made “Orlan” drones. Many of these spare parts are made by US companies that specialize in the design and manufacture of sophisticated military microelectronic equipment, the report said.
The meeting of the unusual American businessman with Orekhov in 2019 was not the first and only attempt to seize the forbidden technology.
The said indictment did not indicate any evidence that Orekhov worked for Russian intelligence agencies. But in the document its strong and political connections with businessmen with gardens are indicated.
The email cited in the indictment mentions the name of one of the owners of the Russian company “Network Technologies”. The document states that the owner of the company 2018On April 3, he wrote to Orekhov and said that more than half of the previously purchased, banned equipment was transferred to the Scientific Research Institute for Precision Instruments.
in Moscow The institute develops radio-electronic and digital software systems for the Russian military, intelligence agencies and the space industry.