exclusive
The public prosecutor’s office searched the business premises of a company near Munich. After monitorAccording to research, she is part of a Russian company network that delivered components to Moscow that are also suitable for the weapons.
The Ukrainian counter-offensive has stalled – almost two years after the start of the Russian war of aggression, Ukraine is heading into a difficult winter: experts fear that Moscow could once again expand its air strikes in the coming weeks, start a winter offensive and also assume new sovereignty Win battlefields.
Russia is apparently also being driven by the seemingly unbridled strength of its arms industry – despite numerous sanctions.
A research collaboration by the ARDmagazine monitor with the Dutch program “Nieuwsuur” and the British think tank RUSI was able to view and evaluate Russian customs data for months. This shows thousands of deliveries of microelectronic components such as transistors, integrated circuits and microchips.
Depends on western technology
The research shows: The Russian military sector, which according to experts is still dependent on Western technology, apparently also supplies itself with war-related technology through a company whose connections extend from Moscow to Hong Kong to Slovakia and Germany: Compel.
Compel’s headquarters in Moscow appear inconspicuous. The facade of the multi-story industrial building is grayed out; hundreds of cars pass the company headquarters every day on a multi-lane road in front of it. But the inconspicuous facade is deceptive: the company is one of the largest traders of electronic components in Russia.
Officially it is said that they only supply the civilian sector and that the defense industry is not one of their customers. But monitor, “Nieuwsuur” and RUSI were able to view documents according to which Compel also supplies companies that in turn work closely with the Russian defense industry. A number of them were sanctioned by the USA this year – and Compel itself was also placed on a sanctions list by American authorities in July 2023. However, not yet from the EU.
Components from Germany in the most modern weapons technology?
The research into the Russian import data shows that Compel also maintains close relationships with Europe. An important supplier to the company comes from Germany: WWSemicon GmbH, based in the Munich district. The documents contain deliveries of thousands of electronic components. These also include voltage converters – components like those found by forensic scientists in Ukraine in the remains of Russian weapons.
The converter appears in the Orlan-10 reconnaissance drone. But also in cruise missiles like the Kh-101 or 9M727 Iskander-K. Cruise missiles are among the most modern weapon systems in the Russian military. In October of this year, a bullet hit the Ukrainian city of Kupyansk. According to local authorities, the rocket’s impact killed more than 50 people.
The voltage converter that is installed in Russia’s weapons is not the only component that can be found in the delivery lists from WWSemicon GmbH to Compel. A number of other components also found their way to Russia – according to the trade data, even after the start of the war, at least until June 2023.
In response to an extensive inquiry from the research cooperation, WWSemicon announced that it had stopped deliveries to Compel before the sanctions were introduced and that the deliveries were legal at the time of export.
“War-relevant” Goods not sanctioned
In fact, most deliveries undoubtedly did not violate EU sanctions. But that is often exactly the problem, says economist Elina Ribakova from the Kyiv School of Economics.
She researches Russia’s war economy. There are still far too few “war-related” goods on the EU and US sanctions lists, she says. According to their analyses, more than 300 product groups would have to be sanctioned, but the EU and the USA have so far only agreed on 45 groups.
But in addition to legal exports, deliveries from WWSemicon of product groups that are on the EU sanctions list also appear in the Russian customs data available to the research cooperation. The data shows that these shipments are apparently delivered to Compel via warehouses in Bratislava and Lithuania.
Bärbel Sachs is a sanctions law expert and she considers the deliveries to be suspicious: “Based on the data we have seen, we assume that these are listed goods whose sale, export and delivery to Russia is prohibited.”
WWSemicon emphasizes that all exports have been approved and checked by German and Slovak authorities. However, neither the company nor the responsible authorities answered specific questions about the suspicious deliveries.
But German customs and the Munich public prosecutor’s office are also looking for answers. In the morning she searched WWSemicon’s business premises and is conducting an investigation against the company. However, the public prosecutor’s office has not yet provided any further details.
The route via third countries
In any case, the delivery routes in the company network are difficult to understand because some of them run across several countries. Compel and WWSemicon have close commercial relationships with a Hong Kong company called Finder Technologies. All three companies are linked to one another through personal ties. The daughter of the Compel boss is a partner in WWSemicon in Munich.
The founder of WWSemicon is the current managing director of the company in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has become an important gateway for sanctioned technology from the West since EU sanctions were implemented, experts say. Likewise China and Turkey.
Germany prevented strict sanctions against third countries
During the negotiations on the EU’s 11th sanctions package, sanctions measures against third countries were decided. But the federal government, of all people, defused this. Confidential documents that monitor available show: The negotiations were specifically about the “possibility of listing states” – i.e. being able to impose stricter sanctions not only on companies but also on states that avoid sanctions or help to do so.
The documents show: Germany blocked this until the end. Only “companies, not states” should be able to be placed on sanctions lists – a position with which the federal government angered several EU states. They stated: “The central pillar of the 11th package will be weakened as a result.”
When asked by Monitor, the Foreign Office said that there was at least the possibility of “excluding third countries from receiving certain EU goods”. But first they rely on “diplomatic means”. In practice, it is hardly possible to sanction states that help circumvent Russia sanctions, say critics.
Roderich Kiesewetter from the CDU thinks this is a mistake. He accuses the federal government of weakening the sanctions against Russia with its actions. “We must make it clear to ourselves that it is not just the future of Ukraine that is at stake here, but the credibility of the European Union and also the credibility of Germany.”
Sanctions against third countries are likely to be an issue again at the current EU summit in Brussels. The EU is planning a twelfth sanctions package. But experts agree: Even the toughest sanctions are useless if the EU member states do not make great progress in enforcing them.