Situation Russia in its attempt to conquer at least part of Ukraine, it seems far from fulfilling the Kremlin’s predictions. In addition to the apparent failure in the conflict zone, the Eurasian country seems to be having problems with the supply of chips, or so Kommersant, a Russian newspaper devoted to political and economic issues with an allegedly favorable editorial line, reported. to Vladimir Putin.

According to various English-language media cited by Kommersant, the proportion of defective chips imported by Russia before the war was 2%. This percentage cannot be considered good considering that currently many low-end components offer sufficient quality within their limitations, but after the application of Western sanctions it increased to 40% of the total. This means that almost every second chip imported by Russia is defective.

Sanctions severely limited Russia’s ability to obtain chips legally, so the country was forced to deal with Chinese companies through the gray market. The problem with the gray market is that it is full of opportunists who wait for defective or low-quality material to creep in and are slower to deliver goods.

Chip import problems have forced Russia to have to remove semiconductors from household appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines to introduce into its tanks, revealing a state of technological precariousness that likely has something to do with the results achieved. so far in his invasion of Ukraine.

China has officially maintained a certain equidistance around the war stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Despite the fact that China is considered an ally of the Vladimir Putin regime, it is no less true that it has the ability to play with its own deck and put its interests first. This paradoxically adds to the sanctions imposed on some companies such as Huawei and ZTE.

We’ll see how Russia manages to see past its obvious chip supply issues, as with such a high percentage of defective units it is obvious that they are giving him a cat for a rabbit. On the other hand, the country’s government has long announced its intention to manufacture chips using the 28nm process by 2030. If we see that Intel’s Ivy Bridge microarchitecture used the 22nm manufacturing process and was commercialized in 2012, it is evident that Russia does not have great chip manufacturing capabilities , and if so.