FBI investigating discovery of US tech in Russian military equipment. Image: @Liveuamap/ Twitter
THE US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has launched an investigation after equipment from US technology companies was found in Russian military equipment seized in Ukraine.
US chips and military components were found in Russian radar systems, drones, tanks, ground equipment and coastal ships, some of them freshly made in 2020, seized in Ukraine – leading to an investigation from FBI and US Commerce Department officers.
A report from the Washington Post revealed that Ministry of Trade officers, which provide control over exports, are conducting investigations with the FBI and have already visited several companies to inquire about the matter.
“Our goal is to actually try to track that back, all the way back to the U.S. supplier” to determine “how did it find its way into that weapons system,” one Commerce Department official told the paper.
“Just because a chip, a company’s chip, is found in a weapon system doesn’t mean we’ve opened up an investigation on that company,” the official added.
“What we’ve done, though, is we’ve opened up an investigation on how that company’s chip got into that system.”
The report noted that investigators from different countries have also found Western electronics in Russian weapons after they were damaged, abandoned or seized in Ukraine.
Although many of these components appear to have been manufactured many years ago, according to the research group Conflict Armament Research, others were made only in 2020, after Russia occupied the Ukrainian Crimea and Donbas.
The US, which has supplied hundreds of weapons to Ukraine and provided billions of dollars in support, banned chip sales to Russian military buyers since the start of the war.
The UK has also sent Ukraine weaponry and supported Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, with US-made M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems recently being sent to the war-torn country after receiving approval from the US.
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