The Biden administration today unveiled a series of criminal accusations and sanctions pertaining to a convoluted plan to illegally obtain military technologies from US suppliers and give them to Russia for use in its conflict in Ukraine.
According to the Justice Department, some of the equipment was found on Ukrainian battlefields, while other nuclear proliferation gear was stopped in Latvia before it could be sent to Russia.
In separate cases in New York and Connecticut, the Justice Department charged nearly a dozen people. Among them were Russian nationals accused of buying sensitive military technology from US companies and laundering tens of millions of dollars for wealthy Russian businessmen; Latvians accused of plotting to smuggle equipment to Russia; and oil brokers for Venezuela accused of engaging in illegal transactions for a Venezuelan state-owned oil company.
Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a statement in which he said, “As I have said, our investigators and prosecutors will be relentless in their efforts to identify, locate, and bring to justice those whose illegal acts undermine the rule of law and enable the Russian regime to continue its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Russian nationals make up five of the defendants accused in New York, and two have been detained. Venezuelan oil dealers are two more people.
The US government requested that all four defendants in the Connecticut case—three Latvians and one Ukrainian—be taken into jail months ago.
They are charged with plotting to smuggle a high-precision grinding machine called a jig grinder made in Connecticut into Russia. A licence is required to export or reexport the equipment to Russia.
The criminal accusations add to the most recent round of anti-Russian sanctions implemented by the Biden administration.
Yury Orekhov and two of his companies, Nord-Deutsche Industrieanlagenbau GmbH and Opus Energy Trading LLC, have been designated for receiving advanced semiconductors and microprocessors used in fighter aircraft, ballistic and hypersonic missile systems, among other military applications, according to sanctions announced today by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
In defiance of US export restrictions, Orekhov and the enterprises ultimately transported the goods to end customers in Russia, including businesses that were specifically named by several federal agencies. Authorities claim that Orekhov was detained in Germany. If he had a lawyer who could speak for him, it wasn’t immediately evident.
The Justice Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control worked in coordination to identify the Russian network.
Along with sanctions on members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner-circle, the US has frozen Russian Central Bank funds and imposed aggressive export controls.
The most recent initiative aims to stop Russia from acquiring military technologies.
Russia is finding it more difficult to obtain the technologies it needs to continue the fight, according to a statement from the deputy Treasury secretary Wally Adeyemo, “due to the unprecedented sanctions and export controls implemented by our broad coalition of partners and allies.”
Because of Russia’s desperation, he continued, “we know these measures are having a direct effect on the battlefield. They have caused them to turn to subpar suppliers and old weapons.
Russia has lost more than 6000 pieces of equipment since the war started in late February, according to information from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which was presented on Friday at the Treasury Department. Russia is now turning to Iran and North Korea for supplies.
Russia is reliant on foreign production machinery and ongoing banking sanctions have undercut the Kremlin’s ability to obtain financing for importing military equipment, the ODNI said..
Russian military technology network busted by the US
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