Charges and arrests involving export violation schemes to aid Russian military

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-charges-and-arrests-two-cases-involving-export-violation-schemes

by mikewarot • 4 years ago

71 87 4 years ago

justice.gov

mikewarot5• 4 years ago

I find it stunning that Russia doesn't have the ability to make internally a thing that goes for US$5000 used on Ebay. Skill and care is required to make them, apparently their education system collapsed a generation ago.

[Edit/PS] This serves as a cautionary tale against neglecting Industrial Arts Education.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jig_grinder

hirundo• 4 years ago

Here's Peter Zeihan saying the same thing about Russia's use of Iranian drones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToagLbv0140

He says they're mopeds with wings, and a third rate US factory could churn them out, but Russia can't build them.

cdot2• 4 years ago

A lot of the manufacturing ability that we take for granted is uncommon in much of the world. For example China was not able to manufacture ball point pen tips before 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/18...

tablespoon7• 4 years ago

[Peter Zeihan] says they're mopeds with wings, and a third rate US factory could churn them out, but Russia can't build them.

Who is he to make a technical evaluation of drone quality? Americans are very biased to assume everything made by anyone besides their first-world allies is crap, and IMHO that kind of thinking will be their undoing.

Russia is adapting to sudden supply chain constraints it was obviously unprepared for, and Iran almost certainly has a lot more experience dealing with (and working around) them. Russia could have all the skill in the world, but they won't be able to build anything if they can't source some critical part for their existing designs. If Iran has the parts for their designs, they can build.

conductr2• 4 years ago

They could if they wanted to. They’re fighting a war and have an immediate need.

greedo• 4 years ago

If you follow @kamilkazani, he talks about how the fall of the USSR crippled Russia's manufacturing ability; without Western help, it's toast.

Cthulhu_3• 4 years ago

I mean the fact that a significant portion of its potential workers has either been drafted into the army, went into hiding or fled the country probably isn't doing them much good either.

impossiblefork• 4 years ago

Many things that are quite cheap require very specialized knowledge.

It's not appropriate to send a bunch of scientific instrument builders on a major project when you can just buy it.

Notice also that tools like these made in China exist, but that they still wanted this US tool. Perhaps they already have many of the same model, or it's actually special.

shagie• 4 years ago

Consider the humble ball point pen and the difficulty of making it in China.

Finally, China manufactures a ballpoint pen all by itself - https://wapo.st/3ySmwlG

And when you get into it...

The tip of a ballpoint pen is what makes it a ballpoint pen. At the tip, a freely rotating ball is held in a small socket which connects it to an ink reservoir that allows the pen to write or draw lines. Manufacturing a ballpoint pen tip that can write comfortably for a long period of time requires high-precision machinery and precisely thin steel, but for years China was unable to match those crafted by foreign companies.

It isn't unreasonable to believe that there are other, more specialized tools, that have similar difficulties in manufacturing without the proper equipment and expertise. Some of them are just not common enough to dedicate significant resources to try to build inhouse.

(and after pulling that up, I see that a recent cousin comment in another thread brings the same article and point)

rolph2• 4 years ago

this tool may be special, it may have been irradiated and or have fission/fusion derived isotopoic content, may also have detectable radionuclides contaminant.

you can work backwards and determine the core components of a detonation.

or you can make very precise wave guides or very spherical objects to make your own detonation.

jbay8086• 4 years ago

I'm guessing that this was a Moore jig grinder. There are few places in the world still capable of manufacturing a machine such as those. I'm not sure if even America still can. The fact that they go for $5000 on eBay is not a testament to them being easy to manufacture. It's a testament to their incredible abilities being underappreciated in the modern world, such that their manufacturers have virtually disappeared or gone into other businesses.

etrautmann• 4 years ago

I went on a deep dive on mechanical accuracy based on a post here on HN of the book authored by Wayne Moore, the founder of that company. Really fascinating to dig into how everything starts from extremely flat reference planes, and how that accuracy can get transferred to other geometries to build high accuracy cnc machines.

https://ia800104.us.archive.org/20/items/FoundationsOfMechan...

nazca• 4 years ago

I agree, but imagine how many things we commonly use in the US that we don't make and would be impossible to get if China & couple other countries introduced export controls on them.

PeterisP• 4 years ago

Specialized tooling is hard to make. For example, Russia is currently suffering from a reduction in railway capacity as they are unable to make some types of replacement ball bearings for rail cars, and they are also unable to make the devices for manufacturing them. The world is quite interconnected, and if you can buy a rare component at a good quality and price whenever you need one, then bootstrapping an industry for that doesn't make sense - since you alone anyways won't have the scale required to be cost-effective for it.

thrown_222• 4 years ago

Russia today is ironically poised for a communist revolution more so than at any other point in the last 30 years. A centrally planned economy is the only way for a third world nation to industrialize and they need that badly.

pc86• 4 years ago

How many times are you going to post the same provably false comment?

Cthulhu_3• 4 years ago

I would imagine China still has the capacity to make these though, they're the world's biggest manufacturer, which includes precision machines.

(I recall a Chinese company buying up all the stock of automated CNC machines for YEARS to meet Apple's demand for the macbook and iphone when they were all aluminium. Not as precise as these though).

lm28469• 4 years ago

I find it stunning that Russia doesn't have the ability to make internally a thing that goes for US$5000 used on Ebay.

If you dig a bit you'll find it's the case for a lot of things. Outsourcing production to Asia&co completely wiped entire industries, the knowledge is gone after one or two generations. Once the infrastructure and the knowledge are gone it's game over, you have to start from scratch again

SAI_Peregrinus• 4 years ago

The indictment mentions it was a CNC jig grinder, so not an old manual machine.

tablespoon7• 4 years ago

Using NDA GmbH as a front company, Orekhov and Kuzurgasheva sourced and purchased sensitive military and dual-use technologies from U.S. manufacturers, including advanced semiconductors and microprocessors used in fighter aircraft, missile systems, smart munitions, radar, satellites, and other space-based military applications. These items were shipped to Russian end users, including sanctioned companies controlled by Telegin and Tulyakov that serviced Russia’s military. Some of the types of electronic components obtained through the criminal scheme have been found in Russian weapons platforms seized on the battlefield in Ukraine. As alleged, in 2019, Orekhov travelled to the United States to source parts used in the Russian-made Sukhoi fighter aircraft and the American-made F-22 Raptor stealth fighter aircraft.

So what components are those, exactly?

mikewarot5• 4 years ago

"According to court documents, beginning in 2018, Eriks Mamonovs, 33, and Vadims Ananics, 46, both citizens of Latvia who operated CNC Weld, a Latvia-based corporation, conspired with Stanislav Romanyuk, 37, a citizen of Ukraine and resident of Estonia who operated Estonia-based BY Trade OU, and others, including Janis Uzbalis, 46, of Latvia and individuals in Russia and a Russia-based company, to violate U.S. export laws and regulations and smuggle a jig grinder that was manufactured in Connecticut to Russia." -- Emphasis mine

formerly_proven2• 4 years ago

N.b. not your average drill grinding jig.

tablespoon7• 4 years ago

> Some of the types of electronic components obtained through the criminal scheme have been found in Russian weapons platforms seized on the battlefield in Ukraine. As alleged, in 2019, Orekhov travelled to the United States to source parts used in the Russian-made Sukhoi fighter aircraft and the American-made F-22 Raptor stealth fighter aircraft.
"...to violate U.S. export laws and regulations and smuggle a jig grinder that was manufactured in Connecticut to Russia." -- Emphasis mine

Unless the world is far more bizarre than I ever imagined, I don't think a jig grinder is a "part used in" a fighter aircraft or the kind of thing that you'd find in "weapons platforms seized on the battlefield".

Specifically I was asking about the "electronic components" common to both the "Russian-made Sukhoi fighter aircraft and the American-made F-22 Raptor stealth fighter aircraft." I'm guessing they will either turn out to be very interesting or extraordinarily mundane.

seventytwo• 4 years ago

Good. As it exists right now, the Russian government should have zero access to anything.

aa-jv2• 4 years ago

.. and how will you feel that this precedent has been set in the court of international affairs, when your country decides to usurp and defeat other sovereign nations around the world?

I mean, sure. Lets have Russia treated the way a country should be treated when it invades another sovereign nation. That'd be progress, and it would be a great way to stop the US' imperialism, also, while we're at it ..

roflyear2• 4 years ago

Great. We shouldn't be doing that.

patrick4512• 4 years ago

Agreed. The amount of sanctimonious hypocrisy it takes to forget or forgive all the unprovoked invasions and nation building the U.S. has conducted over the last 50 years is really difficult to understand.

volleygman180• 4 years ago

The jig is up!

ghostoftiber2• 4 years ago

A jig grinder is a high-precision grinding machine system that does not require a license to export to European Union countries but does require a license for export and reexport to Russia because of its applications in nuclear proliferation and defense programs.

Oh boy I can't wait to see what happens to businesses like Autozone who might accidentally sell screwdrivers to Russia. /s

Seriously though this is a relatively cheap tool which has largely been abandoned in favor of CNC technology. I used one to make engine parts for my Honda in shop class. It strikes me as absolutely bizarre they would arrest anyone for what amounts to a few generations old hand operated tooling. Maybe Putin needed to fix a Lada? Who knows.

flaviut• 4 years ago

The indictment calls it a "high-precision computer-controlled grinding machine" just before it mentions it is "commonly known as a 'jig grinder,'"

lazide• 4 years ago

Who says this wasn’t a precision CNC jig grinder?

ghostoftiber2• 4 years ago

Who knows what it was. I feel like that's calling a Ferrari a "grocery getter". I mean it's probably not wrong - people do probably take their Ferraris to pick up milk - but it feels like the author isn't familiar with the subject.

Overtonwindow• 4 years ago

Actual title: “ Justice Department Announces Charges and Arrests in Two Cases Involving Export Violation Schemes to Aid Russian Military”

thomasjudge• 4 years ago

Actual title?

rolph2• 4 years ago

the title has been editorialized, HN posts are required to use the title as it appears on the submission.

showerst2• 4 years ago

For everyone saying this is a 5000 dollar ebay score from the 50s, here's the regulation -- https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-10-24/pdf/2018-2...

The regulation appears to pertain to _Three or more axis_ CNC machine with a sub 1.1 micron repeatability on one or more axes. That's not a 50s manual jig borer, that's a very high end modern(ish) CNC machine.

The Canadian implementation (Obviously not US law but it's implementing the same treaty), is a little more readable. https://www.international.gc.ca/controls-controles/about-a_p...

cartoonfoxes• 4 years ago

Here's a modern example of a Jig Grinder. https://mooretool.com/jig_grinders.html

mikewarot5• 4 years ago

Ok, so the Moore #3 Grinder was only guaranteed to 2.3 microns, and 0.75 uM in any given inch, after 10 years.

http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/9432/20263.pdf

To be fair... I did try to find the specific grinder, but it doesn't appear to be listen in any article. Also, I agree that having CNC, and all the other upgrades is nice.

Dan Gelbart says his is accurate to a micron

https://youtu.be/HWPYoE1SNnA?t=61

showerst2• 4 years ago

.75 microns? Bah, may as well be a clapped out bridgeport clone! =). In all seriousness manual jig borers feel a little like a Monarch 10ee -- an absolutely incredible machine that will never be built again due to how constraints have changed, that solves a problem that I will never actually have.

Though if I lived out in the country someplace with a huge garage...

Edit: to respond to your specific point it's the 3+ axis CNC that's the key thing, not the accuracy. They were that repeatable in the 50s, but not when interpolating a 3d spline! Can you even 'side mill' a #3 style jig borer without destroying it?

jbay8086• 4 years ago

The document you link refers to an absolute accuracy spec of 2.3 microns. The repeatibility will necessarily be much better than the accuracy. In terms of repeatability it's almost certainly better than 1.1 microns on every axis (even after 10 years).

dahart2• 4 years ago

The new programmable CNC grinders they sell appear to have approximately the same accuracy. Today they don’t report “greatest error in any inch” as a metric.

See the accuracy specs for the 1280 series on page 2: https://mooretool.com/pdf/F-1690%20Rev.%20G%20-1280%20Series...

mc32• 4 years ago

Now, if they dug into our national labs for information exfiltrators who probably sell said information to non-friendlies, they might come across even more interesting catches. It's probably part of doing business, but also they could probably batten the hatches tighter.

carbocation• 4 years ago

The title is “ Justice Department Announces Charges and Arrests in Two Cases Involving Export Violation Schemes to Aid Russian Military”

The HN headline (“Illegal Jig Grinder”) reads as excessively editorialized.

dang• 4 years ago

Fixed now. Thanks!

mikewarot5• 4 years ago

The sad part is they could have got this used CNC Jig Grinder that was ALREADY in Russia, used.

https://www.machinio.com/listings/72896794-jig-grinder-hause...

Charges and arrests involving export violation schemes to aid Russian military

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