Mykines Corporation wasn’t alone: billions in sanctioned tech is exported to Russia

Russia, despite international sanctions, has managed to import more than $ 1 billion in technology products such as high-end processors. Some of the contraband was said to have been sent by a UK-based company.

According to The Register, The Financial Times ‘ report on illegal exports is based, among other things, on an analysis by Maxim Mironov, a professor at the IE Business School in Madrid who had access to Russian customs data. Mironov discovered that a UK-based company called Mykines Corporation was shipping products to Russia made by Huawei, H3C, Intel, AMD, Apple and Samsung, without the proper permission to do so.

While probably not all of the technology is intended for use by the Russian military or national security services, the permission would almost certainly have been denied, given the sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Some of the data discovered by Mironov was allegedly confirmed by trade analytics company ImportGenius. That provided data to Nikkei showing that $ 570 million worth of banned technology was exported to Russia through China and Hong Kong. It involves 3,292 transactions worth at least $ 100,000 each. About 70 percent involved products from American chipmakers such as (but not only) Intel, Advanced Micro Devices and Texas Instruments. The total value of these transactions amounted to at least 740 million dollars.

The Financial Times and Nikkei, based on historical trade flows to Russia, determined that Mykines and the Chinese parties involved in exports began to export significantly more to Russia after the sanctions were imposed.

The Biden administration, which has campaigned strongly for various sanctions packages over the past year, claims to be aware of the routes buyers use in sanctioned countries to import modern technology. Apart from Russia, These are mainly Iran and North Korea. The U.S. wants to crack down on illegal exports.