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LearningTranscript
00:00A group of Ukrainian vehicles, tanks and transports is massing few kilometers off the zero line
00:08because this is how they call the line of contact.
00:11They are preparing for a local counter-attack.
00:14What they don't know though is that a Russian Orlan-10 drone is watching them.
00:21The Russian operator zooms in, identifies soldiers and vehicles as effectively an enemy
00:28unit, he calculates the coordinates and then he radios the targeting data in to the local
00:34artillery headquarter with his 1-6-8 Aktoduk radio.
00:39A fire mission is assigned to a battery of Tornado 300S.
00:44These are 300mm MLRS firing rockets guided by the GPS and featuring mid-course correction.
00:53The Orlan operator keeps watching the Ukrainian till multiple explosions erupt around them.
01:02This is a generic description of something that must have happened hundreds of times in Ukraine.
01:06Yes, because despite all the initial issues and all the subsequent issues that the Russian
01:13ground forces have demonstrated, yet this kind of mission is always executed very efficiently
01:21by the Russian artillery.
01:22The reason being they are using NATO standard equipment.
01:27Ok, that's a dramatization obviously, but let me explain.
01:34A few months ago I spent some of the money that very generously patrons, members and
01:41other donors give to the channel.
01:44And I spent that money to become a RUSI member.
01:47For those who don't know, RUSI is a British think-tank covering military obviously, but
01:53also geo-strategic issues.
01:56A few weeks ago RUSI published a long report about western electronic components in Russian
02:02weapons focusing in particular on semiconductors.
02:08And it was a shock.
02:10So a RUSI team could examine captured equipment or parts that survived the explosions or the
02:18wrecks in search for western electronic components.
02:23And what they could find was unexpected.
02:25Or better, the presence of some western components was indeed expected.
02:31It is well known that Soviet Union but also Russia have always been very engaged in intelligence
02:39activities to acquire western technology.
02:44And since the fall of the Soviet Union it has become easier for the Russian to actually
02:49import components for perfectly legitimate purposes.
02:54It was only reasonable to assume that some of them could have found their way into their
03:00military equipment despite all the checks and controls and regulations.
03:05What surprised pretty much everyone was the scale.
03:09The RUSI team could examine 27 modern Russian pieces of equipment and they found 450 different
03:19types of western and Asian components, many of them essential components for the weapon
03:27or the system.
03:29The small dramatization at the beginning, which was actually inspired by the RUSI report
03:35is a good example of this situation.
03:37The Orleans camera is a Sony.
03:40It is mounted on a gimbal produced by the American Hextronics.
03:44The autopilot is built around a microcontroller produced by the Italo-French ST Microelectronics.
03:51And the engine is a Japanese model aircraft engine.
03:56The Akveduk radio contains a microcontroller from the American analog devices and a DSP
04:02from Texas Instruments.
04:04The rockets fired by the Tornado S contain western FPGAs and RAM modules.
04:11And the list goes on and on and on.
04:13And if you read the report there are several examples that demonstrate how the presence
04:19of western components is really pervasive in Russian weapons.
04:24Even the most modern and the most effective are not immune.
04:29Just another example.
04:30The Kh-101, which is the elective weapon of the beautiful Tu-160 White Swan, has demonstrated
04:39to be very effective in Ukraine and very precise and quite reliable.
04:43While most of the key components of the guidance system are of western origin.
04:49And many of these components were already covered by export limitations before 2014.
04:57The RUSI report goes in great detail into explaining how the Russians did procure these
05:03components.
05:04It was done setting up commercial businesses and intermediaries all around the world.
05:09Actually, some of the components that have been found were relatively easy.
05:15There were generic commercial components whose military use was not strictly controlled.
05:20Others though were military-grade components or dual-use components built according to
05:27military specifications.
05:29This demonstrates how it is practically impossible to control the flow of these components when
05:36they are out in the market.
05:38Experts can always find a way around rules and regulations.
05:43Anyway, we have news that the Russians, since the beginning of the war, are scrambling to
05:48procure all the components that they can put their hands on.
05:52They are continuously setting up new logistic chains in foreign countries just to procure
05:58these critical components.
06:00And this brings us to the key question.
06:04Will Russia be able to support the war effort by producing an adequate quantity of high
06:11technology weapons?
06:13Well, as usual, the answer is...
06:16It's complicated.
06:43First thing to notice is that the flip side of the presence of many important western
06:54components is that all the others are not western.
06:58In fact, Russia and Belarus do have the capability of producing semiconductors.
07:05Albeit, obviously, there is a technology gap with the West and an even bigger gap with
07:11Taiwan.
07:12In fact, it is not by chance that Russian components tend to be larger, heavier and
07:19less power efficient than western components when implementing the same capability.
07:25In very general terms, we can say that the raw processing power is usually lower, so
07:32this needs to be compensated with different architectures.
07:37This is one of the reasons why western components were used in place of developing indigenous
07:43ones.
07:45But there is another and more subtle reason.
07:48Many of the weapons that we see in Ukraine now have been designed in the 90s and early
07:542000s.
07:56This was the time when Russia underwent the shock of transitioning from the Soviet-style
08:02economy to a market economy.
08:04It was a terrible time for Russia.
08:06The Russian population suffered enormously.
08:09But it was a time when the contrast with the West was at its historic low.
08:16So designers at the time thought that they could access these western components without
08:22too much difficulty for the near future.
08:25In the economic science, this is a handbook case of comparative advantages.
08:30Why build something better in-house when it was relatively easy to buy it abroad?
08:36Obviously now we know that this attitude backfired.
08:39In the aftermath of the 2014 events, Russia enacted a legislation to reduce its dependency
08:47on international commerce.
08:49This has been successfully enacted in several industries and it is one of the reasons why
08:54the current sanctions seem to have an impact that is lower than expected.
08:58However, this was not the case for semiconductors and the electronic industry in general.
09:05Semiconductors are the product of a very high-tech industry.
09:10There are very few specialized manufacturers that basically dominate the field.
09:15Building a foundry, I mean the actual factory that produces the semiconductors, requires
09:22large investments but is not that difficult.
09:27The high technology though is in the equipment required by the foundry.
09:33The software to design the semiconductors or the lithography machines that are a key
09:39step of the production process are really built by a very small number of producers.
09:48You can count them on your hand and you will say fingers.
09:52If access to those technologies is cut, if access to those suppliers is cut, it is extremely
10:00difficult to replicate those technologies.
10:04For example, China has heavily heavily invested in the attempt of catching up with the top
10:11brands and the results are hit and miss.
10:14Now, when imports become unavailable, substitutions kick in.
10:18This is an uncontroversial economic fact.
10:22The point is how long it's going to take.
10:25Everything else being equal, that is in constance of the kind of loose alliance that Russia
10:31has with China, then probably the two countries are at least a couple of decades away from
10:39technology parity with the West and Taiwan and probably another decade away before production
10:48grade semiconductors could trickle into the industry and into the actual products.
10:54And obviously we all hope that the war will be over much sooner.
10:59So, most likely, this technology evolution won't be a factor in the Ukrainian events.
11:05So there is another possibility, that is an extensive redesign of these weapons to use
11:12only Russian or Chinese components.
11:15In fact, weapons that in 2014 were in a sufficiently early development stage have been re-engineered
11:25with an eye to the availability of the electronic components.
11:29This is the case, for example, of the Suhoi-57 or the Sarmat ICBM.
11:35Most of the systems, though, have deeper roots, they were already designed, they were already
11:42in production and it was too late to do this kind of replacement activity, if it is materially
11:49possible.
11:50Considering the situation, the Russians may well decide that a redesign is due, but this
11:56is going to take time and for the most complex systems easily take years.
12:03So, if I had to guess, we might see some signs of this kind of redesign, re-engineering,
12:11maybe at some point next year, but it's going to take time.
12:17And again, we all hope that the war is going to end well in advance.
12:22So, at the end, we are left with just one possibility, the Russians are going to do
12:26everything they can to procure these Western components, stockpile them for the future
12:33and use them for the production till something else is going to happen.
12:39Until that redesign that we have already mentioned is going to happen or till there
12:45is some technology progress, we are probably going to see the same weapons with the same
12:50components and when those components will be missed and the production will be urgent,
12:56we will see makeshift solutions just to fill the gap.
13:01And we will see if this is enough to support the war effort.
13:06If you got to this point in the video, thank you very much and an enormous thank you to
13:10all those who support the channel on Patreon by being a member or by one-off donations
13:16on PayPal.
13:17You can also support the channel by buying a model from Air Models, there is an affiliate
13:22link below, I will get a small percentage and there will be no extra cost for you.
13:28In the meanwhile, though, if you are interested in Russian aerospace, Russian affairs or anything
13:33like that, there are several videos on the channel that are going to appear on the screen
13:37beside me.
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13:46So, thank you very much for watching and see you there!