Moscow is actively using American electronics to produce weapons and equipment to wage war against Ukraine.

As Ukrinform reports, this is according to a journalistic investigation by Bloomberg.

Documents obtained by the agency reveal details of an ongoing supply chain from Silicon Valley to Russia, which includes multi-step actions by Russian defense industry suppliers to buy components from US chipmaker Texas Instruments Inc. (TI), based in Dallas.

American high-tech products are used to produce drones, air-guided bombs, communication systems, Iskander missiles and other capabilities.

The purchase process is surprisingly simple, the investigation says. Some Russian distributors have integrated information from Texas Instruments' online store, the TI store, into their sales platforms, allowing customers to see semiconductor inventory and prices before placing orders.

In Moscow or St. Petersburg, they can buy IT components with a few clicks of the mouse, placing orders delivered through companies outside Russia.

Goods arrive in Russia via Hong Kong or other countries.

A Russian portal with a catalog, available for viewing only after the customer's company registers, contains millions of products, including those made by IT.

Experts believe that the portal collects information through an application programming interface (API), which allows programs to interact and exchange data with each other.

Access to the website of the TI corporation (TI.com) is possible in Russia through a VPN connection, which allows you to hide location data and Internet addresses.

Many products purchased in the IT store end up in Russia from third countries without the knowledge of the manufacturer. TI struggles to track where its chips end up as the company sells large volumes of components at relatively low prices.

When Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the US and EU imposed export controls on dozens of goods, electronics and technology used to make weapons, but many supply routes cross the borders of several jurisdictions before reaching Russia. making verification difficult.

The US has investigated the operations of companies such as Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Infineon and Analog Devices, but only IT has been held responsible. While other companies use risk management databases early in the sales process to block unauthorized buyers, TI implements such procedures "significantly later in the customer screening process, and sometimes not at all." according to a report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. TI also allows companies to buy chips on its website without disclosing the end user of the products – unlike most other chipmakers.

Among the brokers offering IT products, according to the documents, are Sure Technology, Chipower Electronics and Horseway Tech in Hong Kong. Public records show that they are subsidiaries of trading companies based in Shenzhen, China, and one of them has announced the hiring of Russian-speaking employees.

Goods are sent from Hong Kong to Russia mainly through the shipping company Sea Global SCM Ltd and the Russian air carrier Aeroflot.

At the end of the supply chain is a group of distributors, including Arvis Group, Alternativa and Getchip. According to the Russian Register of Companies, all of them are registered on Khokhryakov Street in Yekaterinburg.

It is from this group of companies that IT products are delivered to end customers, including enterprises from the Russian military-industrial complex.