27 December 2024

Vladimir Putin’s experimental “Oreshnik” missile fired against Ukraine last month was made by Russian companies that still rely on advanced western manufacturing equipment, according to Financial Times analysis.

Two top Russian weapons engineering institutes, named as developers of the Oreshnik missile by Ukrainian intelligence, have both been advertising for workers familiar with metalworking systems made by German and Japanese companies.

The job posts for the Moscow Institute for Thermal Technology and Sozvezdie, which the FT tracked, illustrate how the Kremlin’s war machine remains critically dependent on foreign technology covered by western sanctions.

The reliance is particularly pronounced in the field of computer numerical control (CNC), a technology vital to the Oreshnik’s production that allows factories to rapidly shape materials at high precision by using computers to control the tools.

Putin cast the use of the ground-launched missile, which analysts said was based on the RS-26 Rubezh, a nuclear-capable ballistic missile that has been tested but not deployed, as a response to Ukraine’s allies permitting the use of advanced western weaponry against targets inside Russia.

“We have a stock of such products, a stock of such systems ready for use,” Putin warned after the strike against a factory in Dnipro, which was formerly the Soviet Union’s top-secret rocket-building facility.

MITT, one of the companies Ukrainian intelligence said was involved in the Oreshnik, is the leading institution for the development of Russian solid-fuel ballistic missiles. In advertisements posted in 2024, the company notes “we adhere to the FANUC, SIEMENS, HAIDENHEIN systems [sic]”.

Fanuc is Japanese, while the other two are German. All three companies make control systems for high-precision CNC machines.

The same three western companies are named in advertisements posted by Sozvezdie, which has listed one of its specialisms as “automated control systems and communication systems” for military use. Their posting requests “knowledge of CNC systems — Fanuc, Siemens, Haidenhain [sic]”.

A video posted earlier this year by Titan Barrikady, a third defence company involved in the production of the Oreshnik, also shows a worker standing in front of a control device which bears the branding of Fanuc.

Russia has long relied on foreign-made machine tools, despite efforts to build domestic alternatives. While the Kremlin has been sourcing large volumes of high-precision metalworking machinery from China, the controls to operate them continue to be sourced in the west.

In 2024, at a major Russian trade fair, eight Chinese companies presented 12 models of CNC devices. According to analysis by the Economic Security Council of Ukraine, 11 of the models were fitted with controllers made by Japanese or German companies.

Denys Hutyk, executive director at the ESCU, said: “The development of the Oreshnik shows how reliant the Russian military-industrial complex still is on high-end western equipment. Western governments should be pushing to stem the flow of these goods, which we saw last month in Dnipro directly contribute to the Russian assault on Ukrainian life.”

Job ads even show that Stan, the company leading Russia’s attempts to build a domestic CNC production industry, is using Heidenhain equipment.

Stopping the flow of CNC controllers and machinery to Russia has been a priority for Kyiv’s allies. CNC devices and components are on the so-called “common high-priority goods list” of items which they particularly wish to deny to Moscow.

Nick Pinkston, chief executive of Volition, an industrial parts company, and an expert in automated tooling, said: “If you could restrict access to these western CNC control units, you might be able to slow down Russian production.”

“Some of these high-end control systems let you cut faster while maintaining accuracy. And if you had to switch to a new control system, you’d have to reconfigure the machine’s physical hardware and tooling, as well as fully reprogram every part, which would cost time and money, and could reduce part quality as well.”

A video posted earlier this year by Titan Barrikady, a third defence company involved in the production of the Oreshnik, also shows a worker standing in front of a control device which bears the branding of Fanuc © Titan Barrikady promotional video

While export controls have slowed the flow of these goods into Russia, FT analysis of Russian filings suggests at least $3mn of shipments, which include Heidenhain components, have flowed into the country since the start of 2024. Some of their buyers are deeply enmeshed in military production.

One of the shipments was listed as being for a system that included a new Heidenhain TNC 640 control unit, listed as produced in 2023. According to Heidenhain’s website, the TNC 640 “defines the high-end spectrum of control technology within its field” and “enables combined milling, turning, and grinding operations”.

Priced at $345,000, the unit was shipped via China to the Baltic Industrial Company, a Russian company which the US has sanctioned and has a history of supplying CNC machinery to the defence industry.

Diana Kaledina, the head of the Baltic Industrial Company, was arrested at the time of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine over accusations of fraud in a military contract. She stood accused of having imported CNC machines from China and then passing them off as Russian-made so they would qualify for funding.

The case against Kaledina was dropped in late 2022 after an ombudsman ruled her prosecution “could cause unjustified damage to the Russian machine tool industry”, which was “critically important for the economy”.

Heidenhain and Baltic did not respond to requests for comment.

Siemens said it “[does] not compromise on [sanctions] compliance” and investigates “any indications of circumvention . . . and [involves] the necessary and relevant authorities”.

Fanuc acknowledged the machine photographed at Titan Barrikady appeared to be theirs, but noted it seemed to be old.

Fanuc said it has “enhanced vigilance and controls within our export control processes to prevent potential diversion of technology or equipment to Russian entities”.