Russia can maintain external supplies of UAVs for the war in Ukraine through anonymous shipping companies to avoid Western sanctions.
Five Russian-flagged ships, the Baltiyskiy-111, Omskiy 103, Skif V, Musa Jalil and Begey, made 73 trips through the Caspian Sea to Iran over the past year, according to Ukrainian government intelligence documents.
None of the vessels have been sanctioned by the US or other Western countries. Washington has previously imposed sanctions on dozens of commercial vessels and shipping companies for allegedly transporting weapons and military items to Moscow.
Ukrainian government documents show that Russia is adapting to sanctions by switching to transport ships with few public links to Moscow and not yet targeted by Washington to maintain supplies of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for operations in Ukraine, experts say.
"Russia's sanctions evasion tactics are always changing, because this is a cat and mouse game," said Eric Woods, an expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in the US.
A UAV flies over Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, during an attack in October 2022. Photo: AFP
Russia began using Iranian-made Shahed UAVs in the Ukrainian battlefield in August last year to attack civilian infrastructure such as electricity, water and gas, in an effort to influence the psychology of Ukrainian people ahead of the harsh winter.
Small, cheap and hard to detect, these UAVs carrying 3-5 kg of explosives can hover in the sky, choose their target and then dive down, becoming a big challenge for Ukraine's air defense forces. Kiev has recently upgraded its air defense network with weapons donated by the West, but there is no truly effective way to deal with UAVs.
The White House released data in June showing that Russia had used the Caspian Sea route to transport UAVs from Iran. The US also disclosed intelligence showing that Russia was building a domestic UAV factory based on technical assistance and material supplies from Iran, with the ambition of producing 6,000 units.
The ships Ukraine recorded were owned by small, obscure shipping companies in southern Russia, including three in Astrakhan, near the mouth of the Volga River on the Caspian Sea.
Lagoda Shipping was sanctioned by Ukraine after its ships docked on the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. Lagoda Shipping and Astrakhan-based Dalir, which owns the Baltiyskiy-111, both operate just two vessels.
Documents show that shipping activity in the Caspian Sea has continued. The Begey left Astrakhan on August 17 and arrived at the Iranian port of Amirabad on August 23, according to public shipping data obtained by the WSJ .
The US government has identified the port of Amirabad as the point of departure for UAV shipments destined for Russia. The Omskiy 103 also docked at Amirabad on August 23, one of three trips to Iran since July 1.
The growing use of the Caspian Sea route by Russia presents a challenge for Washington in its efforts to block the flow of weapons and military supplies to Russia.
Because the Caspian Sea is an enclosed body of water between Russia to the north, Iran to the east, and Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan to the east and west, it is difficult for the US and its allies to intervene to stop shipping there. The Caspian Sea countries also have little connection to the Western financial system, so the impact of sanctions is negligible.
However, the US still has a number of ways to put pressure on Russian shipping in the Caspian Sea, experts say. One of them is to cut off Russia’s access to international insurance markets to prevent it from accepting cargo from other countries.
Russian ships in the Caspian Sea fleet also travel to the Black Sea and elsewhere using Russia’s vast network of inland rivers and canals. At least two ships that have sailed through the Caspian Sea and have been sanctioned for transporting cargo for the Russian military have docked in Türkiye in the past year.
“There are always countermeasures to Russian sanctions evasion,” said William Reinsch, a former US deputy secretary of commerce and now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in the US.
US sanctions are squeezing Russia’s arms supply, forcing Moscow to find ways around the rules to secure the hardware it needs. In recent months, Russia’s military procurement network has had to route electronic shipments through three or four countries before reaching Russia, after the US blocked shipments through Türkiye and other countries, according to US officials.
“Weapons production needs to be efficient and stable, and what Russia is doing is relying on an opaque, ad hoc supply chain,” said a senior US official.
In an intelligence document sent by the Ukrainian government to all G7 members, Kiev called on the parties to apply stricter export restrictions on electronic equipment used for UAV production.
The wreckage of Shahed UAVs shot down in Ukraine contained more than 50 components manufactured in the US and allied countries, including processing chips and GPS navigation equipment, according to Ukrainian intelligence.
Ukraine’s efforts to stem the flow of UAVs and the components needed to build them are becoming a key part of the war. Russia began using domestically produced Shahed UAVs earlier this summer, according to Conflict Armament Research.
Iran's Shahed-136 UAV model. Graphics: Washington Post
Ukrainian officials predict that UAVs will play an increasingly important role in the current conflict. The document shows that Russia has used more UAVs in attacks aimed at overwhelming Ukraine's air defenses.
“Since April-May, the number of UAVs used in an attack has increased significantly,” the report said, adding that Russia used 58 UAVs in the Kiev raid on May 28.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier in August that Russia had used a total of 1,961 Shahed UAVs in the conflict in Ukraine, of which "a significant number" had been shot down.
According to leaked documents obtained by the Washington Post , Russia is said to be pursuing the goal of producing 6,000 suicide UAVs at a factory inside the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia, based on technology and components from partners, notably Iran.
If successful, the project here could help Moscow maintain its weapons supply to deal with Ukrainian forces on the battlefield, while improving Russia's position in the drone arms race with peer rivals, observers said.
Thanh Tam (According to WSJ )
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