Lithuania’s public radio station LRT reported last Friday that in 2023, Lithuania and other countries from the West exported technologies to Russia which could be used in Moscow’s artillery attack against Ukraine.
Denys Hutyk is the director of the Ukrainian Economic Security Council, and he led a team of Ukrainians and Brits who investigated the matter. He told LRT that companies from Lithuania represented some 2.5% of the relevant exports, including processors, chips, etc.
Lithuanian businesses are continuing to sell components to Russia, Hutyk said.
“Some Lithuanian companies and suppliers are still involved in direct exports to Russia,” the specialist told LRT Radio. “This allows Russia to obtain parts which it needs more quickly, and this facilitates the circumvention of existing sanctions.”
Lithuania’s former deputy minister for economics and innovation, Karolis Zemaitis, for his part, stresses the need to distinguish between Lithuanian-manufactured goods and those that are re-exported through the country. Zemaitis says that Lithuanian companies are exporting very little in the way of high technologies to Russia, but lots of such equipment passes through the country because it has a strong logistics sector and a favourable geographic location.
“Lithuanian produces microscopically few products that could be of interest to Russia when compared to the rest of the world, but our logistics sector certainly has the capacity to take part in such processes,” the expert told LRT.
Hutyk adds that high-tech components allow Russia to automate and modernise its military. Technologies from the UK, Germany and other EU countries mostly enter Russia via China, Taiwan and South Korea.
“Taiwan is one of the leading exporters of hi-tech parts to Russia,” he says. “In 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, Taiwan had the second highest number of companies after China which directly export parts to Russia. If Lithuanian companies have increased exports to Taiwan, there is a high risk that these goods have been redirected to Russia.”
Lithuanian Prime minister Gintautas Paluckas said last Thursday that he knows nothing about Lithuanian goods that are used by Russia’s military industry.
The Lithuanian government has proposed an easement on restrictions on the export of dual-use goods by air to third parties, which were introduced only last month by Lithuania’s former Cabinet of Ministers to keep such goods from reaching Russia. Some Lithuanian companies such as the hi-tech Teltonika Group, have signalled their dissatisfaction with such a plan.
Source: BNS
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