Armenia, several other countries help Russia evade sanctions, U.S. claims
Exports of key microchips and electronics that Russia needs for its war machine are back to pre-war levels, as Russia has gotten better at circumventing sanctions, POLITICO reported on Wednesday, citing Jim O’Brien, sanctions coordinator at the U.S. State Department.
The problem, O’Brien said, is that European companies are selling to other countries, which in turn resell the materials to Russia.
“By the start of this year, Russia was able to reimport certain key categories of electronics at about pre-war levels,” O’Brien told Playbook at an ECFR event, referring to chips, processors and integrated circuits key to making modern weapons.
O’Brien said the U.S. has identified five countries in particular that are causing the circumvention problem: Turkey, Kazakhstan, Georgia, the United Arab Emirates and Armenia.