The author is a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and director of the international affairs programme at the Kyiv School of Economics
Russia’s latest horrendous attack on a children’s cancer hospital in Kyiv earlier this month has raised serious questions about how the country can produce missiles and drones at scale using western components. Despite numerous export controls, western companies still bear much of the responsibility for enabling Russia’s access to these critical parts. To make export controls effective, we must hold them accountable.
In an unprecedented multilateral action, more than 50 countries imposed sanctions on Russia, including export controls, shortly after February 2022’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. These have increased production costs for Russia’s military and stalled its supply chains. However, they remain a whack-a-mole game played by a few hundred government employees against a flood of distribution networks circumventing them.