Kyiv submits report
German components are said to be in Russian rockets
07/15/2023, 1:18 p.m
In the hypersonic missile Kinzhal or in the cruise missile Iskander there are components from the Federal Republic. This is reported by the Ukrainian sanctions commissioner. According to a report, the Federal Foreign Office takes the information from Kiev very seriously.
Components from Germany and other Western countries are evidently often installed in Russian rockets and cruise missiles. This was pointed out by Vladyslaw Vlasyuk, the sanctions officer of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “People are killed by bullets every day here,” he told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” (FAS). “And a great many contain components from Western countries.”
According to the report, on June 13, Vlasyuk, along with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, reported these findings to Western ambassadors in Kyiv. Accordingly, Russia has doubled the production of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles since the attack on Ukraine in spring 2022. From 512 last year to an estimated 1061 later this year. From the Ukrainian point of view, this is only possible because the Western sanctions against Moscow are being lifted by third countries.
The written briefing to the ambassadors lists that the majority, i.e. 81 percent, of the smuggled bullet parts came from the USA. Switzerland follows with eight percent. Germany and Japan are third on the list with 3.5 percent each. Components from Germany are said to be in the Kh-101 cruise missile and in the 9M728 and 9M729 variants of the Iskander cruise missile. The hypersonic missile Kh-47M2 Kinschal should also contain German parts, it is said. According to Kiev’s information, materials and services for these weapons were provided by 16 German companies. The export is said to have been processed via China in particular, but also via Central Asia, the Caucasus or Turkey.
Electronics, insulating material or plastics were probably delivered. According to the FAS report, there is a likelihood that some plants would not even know where their products ended up. Because according to the Ukrainians, a number of bogus companies were founded to circumvent sanctions, which often only existed for a day.
According to information from the FAS, the representation from Kiev in Berlin is not questioned. The Foreign Office says it takes the reports “from our Ukrainian colleagues about the use of sanctioned components in Russian projectiles very seriously” and carefully examines this information. However, it is possible that these components were delivered before the war and before the German sanctions came into effect. Russia had been preparing the attack on Ukraine for a long time, and it cannot be ruled out “that stocks of critical components were already being built up before the war,” the FAS quoted the authority as saying. Deliveries contrary to sanctions would be “a case for the public prosecutor”.