Russian Military-Industrial Complex

Since 2022, the Ukrainian Economic Security Council has been investigating the Russian military-industrial complex, identifying critical dependencies on imports of equipment, raw materials, components and consumables.

In 2023, the organisation published its first public report on the dependence of Russian arms manufacturers on foreign computer-numerical-control (CNC) machine tools. In November 2023, an expanded version was released, which formed part of a report to the US Congress.

In 2024, the organisation investigated China’s role in maintaining Russia’s access to critical industrial equipment. Later that year, analysts from the Ukrainian Economic Security Council, in collaboration with RUSI and the Open Source Centre, produced the report ‘Ore to Ordnance’, which traces the path from the extraction and processing of raw materials needed for the production of Russian artillery to the delivery of howitzers and ammunition to the front lines in Ukraine.

In 2025, the organisation investigated Russia’s dependence on imported components for the production of Iskander-M ballistic missiles and Su-34 and Su-35 fighter jets, as well as on strategic minerals: antimony oxide from Belgium and chromite (chromium ore) supplied to Russia via the EU.

In December 2025, the Economic Security Council of Ukraine, together with RUSI, NLI and Panoptikon, presented a joint study entitled ‘Disrupting Russian Air Defence Production: Reclaiming the Sky’, which identified vulnerabilities in the production process of Russian air defence systems.