In this feature:

• A Russian plant responsible for construction of Sukhoi Su-57 fighters being re-equipped with Western machinery. 
• Equipment procurement going on under the guise of deliveries of Chinese and Russian supplies.
• Industrial machinery is coming from Taiwan and Germany, which are themselves under risk of becoming victims of aggression.

In today’s publication, we invite our readers to have look behind the scenes of the Russian defense plant Micropribor located in the village of Konakovo near the city of Tver, Russia. The plant is involved in the production of the new Russian fighters Sukhoi Su-57. Just recently, in October 2024, The Telegraph wrote about problems with this project due to a shortage of parts for the MPPU-50 module, which is produced by Micropribor.

The 5th generation Su-57 fighter platform is a key element of Russian propaganda about the technological superiority of the Russian military-industrial complex over its rivals. However, evidence from analysts reported by The Telegraph indicates that the production of avionics for the Su-57 is impossible without Western components. However, we see that their supplies to Russia continue despite the sanctions.

Volunteers of InformNapalm  demonstrated how Russian company Planar, through its branch in the USA, supplied the required electronic components for the Russian military industry, including Micropribor.

It should be noted that both features were prepared on the data provided by the Cyber Resistance group hacktivists. But the cultivation of Micropribor was different from many previous operations. It lasted for two years and was made possible by the cooperation with the private analytical and intelligence company Dallas. In particular, spyware was planted on the company’s intranet. This helped the team get the specification and performance data of the weapons containing the components produced by Micropribor. The data was transferred to Ukraine’s partners abroad. Dallas team took on the task of gathering primary information about the target and also helped the hacktivists successfully gain access to the information.

Only a small part of the information obtained from the Micropribor monitoring has been made public so far. Now we have an opportunity to tell a little more. The collected data allows us to look at the situation in the Russian military-industrial complex from a broader perspective than just the supply of Western electronics.

According to the official claims, Russian industry has long been striving for the “import substitution” of equipment and components. The Kremlin outlined this course long before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, there are multiple indicators that, on the whole, Russia has so far failed to achieve the task. In particular, it is attested by the scale of shadow imports and the efforts invested in it.

One of the documents of JSC Micropribor reveals information about the production machinery at the plant. It is an analytical paper about the state of the plant’s manufacturing outfit as of the beginning of 2022. The paper makes it clear that a significant part of this Russian plant’s capacity relies on foreign equipment.

Formally almost half of the machinery is of domestic production, and it could be viewed as a pretty good result. However, a modern world-class precision milling machine and a Soviet one are worlds apart in terms of their value in production. Therefore, we paid particular attention to the age of the analyzed machinery.

The above excerpt is from the machining section. It shows that the newest equipment (up to five years old) is almost entirely foreign, whereas the share of Russia-friendly China is low.

The situation is somewhat better with equipment that is between five and ten years old, but at least half of it is foreign (made in Germany and Taiwan).

An important detail – 12 years ago the share of new Russian equipment at the plant was higher than seven years ago, although years of “import substitution” policies should have yielded the opposite trend.

There is more Russian equipment in the assembly than in the machining shop.

However, in the instrumentation and control department, the main part of the equipment is foreign. China is not the only supplier of imported equipment here, which is a familiar pattern.

The document shows that the decisive part in supporting the production at the Micropribor plant belongs to the Western manufacturers. It is important to note that we are dealing here with a military plant manufacturing “priority weapons types”, to quote the authors of the analytical paper.

In particular, 45 out of 100 new equipment types (up to 10 years old) used for the production of Russian weapons (Su-57 included) were imported. The percentage of imported machines was even higher for the latest equipment under five years old – 18 out of 29 types (62%). Let us recall that at the time of writing the analytical paper (2022), Russia’s aggression against Ukraine had already been going on for eight years. Whereas, Russian anti-Western propaganda had been out there for even longer. Micropribor today is powered by mostly imported machines: Taiwanese MCV-300 (manufactured by Long Chang Machinery Co ltd), joint Japanese-German DMG CTX 310, German Alzmetall ALZTRONIC 9, Czech Ergonomic, Italian ATS DSI 192, American Mini-Circu, etc.

This analytical paper alone provides a lot of data on the state of production at Micropribor. For example, statistical information about employees. Find the full version of the document under the link below.

Link to the full version

Some changes did occur after the full-scale invasion. However the details convincingly show that they are very far from what the proponents of Russia’s technological isolation would like to achieve. The plant continues to be “successfully re-equipped” with the latest imported equipment.

The analytical paper notes that as of early 2022, the instrumentation and control department of Micropribor had four spectrum analyzers made in Germany, not mentioning the manufacturer. Spectrum analyzers are used, for example, in the production of radio equipment. At the same time, Micropribor develops not only Su-57 components, but also the Russian army radio station Arakhis-2.

Documents show that Micropribor continued to purchase German spectrum analyzers in 2023. We could also find out about the manufacturer: it’s Rohde&Swartz. AMTEST LLC supplied such and similar products worth almost 30 million rubles in January 2023.

Amtest LLC openly offers measuring equipment “from global manufacturers to all regions of Russia” on the main page of its website.

There is no information yet about the introduction of sanctions against Amtest.

“Russian” machine: German precision and Taiwanese quality for Chinese yuan

The procurement of large machines also continues after the start of full-scale production. On July 27, 2022, a contract was made with KAMI-GRUPP LLC for the supply of a KLE 360 CNC lathe manufactured by Siemens. The transaction includes a full specification of the goods.

The specification makes it clear that the KLE 360, a formally Chinese machine, uses most of the components produced in Taiwan. In particular, by the companies Auto Strong and HIWIN. Software from the German giant Siemens.

Link to the full agreement

On the positive side, it should be noted that KAMI-GROUP LLC came under sanctions from the US, EU and Switzerland. On the negative side, the level of industrial cooperation and technological mutual technological penetration between China and Taiwan, which are geopolitical adversaries, is of considerable concern.

The example of Micropribor shows in detail how China is “import-substituting” Western equipment in Russia.

In February 2023, Micropribor purchased equipment from DM TECHNOLOGIES LLC. This contract is significant in a number of ways.

DM Technologies is well known in Russia. Russian propaganda used its case as yet another symbol of successful “import substitution.” At the end of 2023, Russian media triumphantly reported the launch of production of Russian machine tools in Ulyanovsk under the COBALT brand. However, this is not a new production.

From open sources, e.g. an article in the Kommersant newspaper, we understand that DM Technologies is the renamed DMG MORI RUS LLC, the Russian branch of the Japanese-German machine-tool corporation, which already had facilities in Ulyanovsk.

The DM Technologies website actually offers machine tools under their own brand. In particular, the FM 9000V milling machine.

This is exactly what Micropribor purchased from DM Technologies in February 2023.

There is a surprising detail in the contract: for some reason, a Russian plant buys a Russian machine from a Russian company, but they settle in Chinese yuan.

Why is that? Investigators from The Insider project explained this based on Russian customs data. In short, all the machines are imported from China, whereas in Russia they only mark them with the DMT brand. However, the Micropribor contract allows us to look under the hood of the FM 9000V machine. And there we perceive much deeper problems.

Link to the full text of the agreement

The systems that are not of Chinese origin are highlighted in yellow. The control software package is traditionally German, provided by Siemens. Next, a measuring probe, to minimize the human factor in production, is also from the German company Blum-Novotest.

Note that the screenshot was taken on the Blum-Novotest website, which still has a working Russian-language version. Moscow also still remains on the map as a location of a branch office. The company’s headquarters and factories are located in Germany.

The TJR FAR 125b rotary table is made in Taiwan, and the manufacturer is one of the leaders in its industry. This is yet another example of cooperation between China and Taiwan in a supposedly civilian industry, involving companies like Micropribor whihch are directly connected to the military-industrial complex.

P.S.

It should be noted that US sanctions were imposed against DM Technologies LLC in December 2023. However, there is no information on whether any restrictions were introduced or whether there was any pressure on the company’s counterparties in China. And most importantly, companies from other jurisdictions, such as Taiwan or Germany, are still not under clear obligation to request additional information about the end users of their products. Companies bear no responsibility for the delivery of their goods to Russia. Therefore, the price of their products remains affordable for the Russian buyers.

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