Sanctions against Russia came into force several years ago, but European and North American pieces continue to appear in the places devastated by the attacks in Ukraine
Ukraine once again denounced that Russia continues to have the capacity to circumvent sanctions imposed by the European Union and the USA. According to , Kiev says that an example of this is that the tests carried out on the wreckage caused by the attack that killed 24 Ukrainians, this Thursday, showed that the cruise missiles used had been manufactured this year with parts and components produced in the West.
Ukrainian authorities highlight photographs of what remains of what appear to be Kh-101 missiles, one of the most advanced Russian cruise missiles used in attacks on Ukrainian territory.
The images were examined by Ukrainian officials, an independent expert and the Financial Times.
The main person responsible for sanctions in Ukraine, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, assures the Financial Times that all the Kh-101 cruise missiles that hit Kiev and were evaluated by Ukrainian experts had been manufactured in the second quarter of 2026.
“Each missile contained more than 100 Western-made components,” Vlasiuk wrote on the social network X this Thursday.
Each Kh-101 Russian missile launched yesterday examined by experts “contained more than 100 western-made components,” said.
An identical Kh-101 missile to the one that struck the apartment building, examined after an attack on January 20, contained chips from US brands…
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM)
A Kh-101 missile identical to the one that hit the residential building in Kiev, examined after an attack on January 20, contained chips from North American brands such as Texas Instruments, AMD and Kyocera AVX, as well as components from the German group Harting Technology Group, the Dutch Nexperia and other Western companies, according to a document provided to the Financial Times by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office.
Several of the items examined by Ukrainian authorities even had serial numbers that indicated they were manufactured in 2024 and 2025, several years after Western sanctions came into effect.
Several components made in China and Taiwan were also found among the January debris.
The Ukrainian Air Force said this Thursday that 35 of the 56 missiles fired by Russia in the largest combined attack of the war in a 24-hour period were Kh-101 cruise missiles.
Russia has stepped up production of the Kh-101 missile since the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which Vladimir Putin called and calls a “special military operation”. Production in 2024 was eight times greater than before the war, according to the Financial Times.
These missiles gained particular prominence that year, when Russian forces destroyed a children’s hospital in Kiev with a .
