Last month, South Korea banned the export of 57 non-strategic products (meaning “not weapons”) to Russia and Belarus, including electronic components. Compared to bans on the sale of weapons, the gesture could seem insignificant.
However, as the Russians accumulate losses, this blockage takes on more and more weight. On the one hand, the armament industry has a huge need for machines, equipment, but also components made in ” Outside Russia “.
Many skills have disappeared or have not been developed (including semiconductors) in Russia. If we have not seen its new generation tank (T-14 “Armata”) on the Ukrainian front, it is partly because the 2014-2015 sanctions linked to the annexation of Crimea deprived Russia of military equipment – French in particular.
Why make the link between the semiconductor industry and military equipment with this South Korean announcement on “non-strategic” products? Simply because, deprived of military components, the Russians were able to adapt and produce equipment – particularly drones – on the basis of equipment for the general public.
Just the example of light drones makes it possible to realize the Russians’ effort to adapt: Swiss GPS chips (u-blox), Franco-Italian or Dutch processors (STMicroelectronics and NXP), Japanese cameras (compact Olympus and Canon), network controller (South Korea), etc. Most of the non-lethal components (explosives, etc.) are produced outside Russia.
Also see video:
Also see video:
In this context, the Korean blockage is important, since the country is the first producer of memory in the world – RAM like NAND (Flash) – thanks to its champions such as Samsung or SK Hynix. If the example of North Korea, also subject to very strict embargoes, proves that even an isolated country can source components, the Russian case here is very different since Russia is waging a high-intensity war.
Sourcing a few high-priced components for missile testing every 36th of the month is one thing, mass-producing to replace material destroyed en masse on several fronts is quite another.
Sources: Conflict Armament Research (CAR), InformNapalm