Russia uses American online store to buy weapons components – Bloomberg

Russia has established a supply chain of American microchips and chips used for the production of weapons from the online store of Texas Instruments, or TI store.

Source: Bloomberg

Details: It is worth noting that Russian distributors replicate information from the TI store online marketplace to their trading platforms, allowing clients to view semiconductor availability and costs before placing an order.

Getchips.ru and altchips.ru are two Russian sites that sell TI products for a 40% markup.

US officials have established that Russian portals get entire product information via the Texas Instruments API (an application programming interface that allows companies to exchange data).

TI provides its partners with an API that allows them to view prices, product availability, order details, and so on. In some circumstances, authorised users of this API, such as price comparison websites, combine this data with additional sources to create a new API.

TI asserts that it does not provide its API to any Russian company, and that any companies that have access to it must go through a verification process.

According to Bloomberg, Russian distributors replicate product information from a Western company's website without direct access to the Texas Instruments API. However, it was not possible to determine the name of this company.

Reports say that the Russian government must first approve the acquisition before ordering and supplying the essential equipment to at least one intermediate country.

Records reviewed by Bloomberg show that Hong Kong-based intermediaries include Sure Technology, Chipower Electronics, and Horsway Tech.

Goods are mostly delivered from Hong Kong and Russia by Sea Global SCM and the Russian aircraft Aeroflot.

By August 2024, one of the largest Russian distributors had handled over 4,000 orders for hundreds of thousands of TI store goods totalling over US$6 million. Orders of over US$4 million were planned for Russian military businesses.

Previously, the US authorities accused the TI store of lax oversight over online sales. At the same time, the online store claims to regularly review and cancel thousands of orders that seem suspicious.

TI chips, in particular, were discovered in Russian Kinzhal missiles and Lancet-3 attack drones. Since the outbreak of the full-scale war, Ukrainian investigators have discovered over 4,000 Western components in Russian weapons, with Texas Instruments accounting for 14% of the total.

Background: 

• India plays a vital role in supplying Russia with powerful Nvidia AI chips, while Malaysia has emerged as the primary provider of technology.
• Russia manages to circumvent sanctions by purchasing electronic components from Western businesses for its missiles, twice overpaying for them.

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