Ukrainian authorities are growing frustrated with a surge in foreign components being found in Russian drones, with a senior diplomat calling on allies to tighten sanctions controls as Moscow scales up military production.
Daryna Krasnolutska and Aliaksandr Kudrytski
October 15, 2025
Financial Post
(Bloomberg) — Ukrainian authorities are growing frustrated with a surge in foreign components being found in Russian drones, with a senior diplomat calling on allies to tighten sanctions controls as Moscow scales up military production.
Vladyslav Vlasiuk, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s special envoy on sanctions, said the European Union’s sanctions regime is showing cracks as enforcement is carried out by member states rather than the bloc as a whole — even as the Kremlin expands large-scale aerial attacks. “We would like the European Union to step up exports control for European companies,” Vlasiuk said in an interview in
The diplomat along with First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya met with Group of Seven envoys in Kyiv last week to share concerns about Russia evading sanctions to purchase foreign components for its weapons. The issue is increasingly being raised by Zelenskiy in his talks with partners.
The main supply sources of critical components and equipment for Russian weapons have been the focus of a report that Ukraine’s foreign intelligence chief Oleh Ivashchenk presented to Zelenskiy on Wednesday ahead of the president’s visit to US. “We in Ukraine clearly understand which supplies matter most to Moscow, and every such scheme must be cut off,” Zelenskiy said Wednesday on X. “Our partners have all the means necessary to do this.”
Explosives-laden drones and missiles have been instrumental in stepped up Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy system, which have triggered widespread blackouts and knocked out more than half of the war-battered nation’s natural gas output. Debris from the attacks is being scrutinized by Ukrainian military specialists to detect technological changes and analyze what materials and components they are made from.
Ukraine estimates that more than 500 drones and missiles launched by Russia in one of its major barrages on Oct. 5 contained more than 100,000 foreign components, including those made in the US and Western European countries, Zelenskiy said last week.
Ukraine is particularly tracking adjustments to Western sanctions against neighboring Belarus, Kyslytsya said in an interview. The landlocked nation, used by Russia as a launchpad for its invasion in 2022, is increasingly becoming a platform for the drone-components trade, he said.
Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, is aiming for a “big deal” with US President Donald Trump as his nation struggles with Western sanctions, he said during a meeting with key officials in Minsk on Tuesday.
The Kremlin sharply escalated its aerial attacks on Ukraine last month, following Trump’s meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, which failed to bring the Russian leader to the negotiations table.
Russia’s full-scale war, well into its fourth year, is being financed partly through the circumvention of Western sanctions, with cryptocurrencies among the key tools to evade restrictions, Vlasiuk said. Russia’s use of these mechanisms often involves overlaps between crypto and traditional financial instruments, and must be addressed comprehensively, he said.
Kyiv is calling on allies to craft a new, coordinated response to Moscow’s use of crypto assets. The measures should extend beyond legal entities to include trademarks and commercial names, because crypto exchanges frequently mask their ownership structures, he said.
Ukraine is also warning about Russia’s uses of its so-called shadow fleet, with tankers not only used for transporting oil, but also serving as mobile platforms to host Russian intelligence systems, as well as moving electronic-warfare equipment used in cyber operations and GPS jamming, according to Vlasiuk.
The EU is aiming to increase the pressure on Russia’s shadow fleet to dent Moscow’s oil export proceeds. While the bloc mulls further restrictive measures, some countries have tightened checks on vessels near their waters in order to disrupt Russian oil flows. “We now see drones flying over the European Union,” Kyslytsya said in Kyiv. “Sanctions are there and export controls are there — but there is a clear need for enforcement of implementation.”