Parts made by more than a dozen US and Western companies were found inside a single Iranian drone shot down in Ukraine last fall, according to an assessment by Ukrainian intelligence that exclusively acquired by CNN.
The assessment, which was shared with officials of the American governmentς στα τέλη του περασμένου έτους, δείχνει την έκταση του προβλήματος που αντιμετωπίζει η κυβέρνηση Biden, η οποία έχει δεσμευτεί να σταματήσει την παραγωγή drones από το Ιράν που εκτοξεύει η Ρωσία κατά εκατοντάδες στην Ουκρανία.
CNN reported last month that the White House had created a task force to investigate how American and Western technology (από τον smaller equipment such as semiconductors and GPS units to larger components such as engines) ended up in Iranian drones.
Of the 52 components the Ukrainians removed from Iran's Shahed-136 drone, 40 appear to have been made by 13 different US companies, according to the assessment.
The remaining 12 components were manufactured by companies in Canada, Switzerland, Japan, Taiwan and China, according to the declassified report.
But the options to combat the issue seem to be very limited. The USA have for years imposed harsh export control restrictions and sanctions to prevent the "leakage" of high-quality materials to Iran. Now US officials are considering increased enforcement of those sanctions, encouraging companies to better monitor the supply chains they use. This seems to be important if one wants to track down the third-party distributors who buy these products and promote them to embargoed countries.
