Will Israel arm Ukraine, how to curb Russia’s arms production, and counter fiber-optic drones? Serhiy Zgurets' column

Will Israel really supply weapons to Ukraine?

For two days, the topic of possible defense support from Israel to Ukraine with weapons has repeatedly come up. This situation is quite unusual since Israel had previously adhered to a policy of neither selling nor transferring Israeli weapons to Ukraine's Defense Forces.

But now, the reason for discussing a possible shift is reports that several U.S. Air Force C-17 military transport planes flew from a base in Israel to Rzeszów, Poland — a key hub for transferring weapons to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Initially, there were reasons to believe that trophy Russian weapons captured from Hezbollah and other proxies had been delivered from Israel to Ukraine. During Israel's operation in southern Lebanon alone, over 85,000 units of various weapons, missiles, and military equipment from Hezbollah were seized. There were certain initiatives in Israel to transfer these weapons to Ukraine. However, Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Michael Brodsky later denied in an interview with Radio Svoboda that such plans would be implemented.

But now, there is a new development in this story involving U.S. military aircraft flying from Israel and landing at the base in Rzeszów. It is believed that this week, the U.S. military transported about 90 Patriot air defense missiles from Israel to Poland on these aircraft.

If confirmed, this would be the largest weapons transfer from Israel to Ukraine. Axios reported this, citing three sources familiar with the operation, though none were named. What is believable here is that since April last year, Israel has decommissioned several Patriot air defense systems that had been in use for over 30 years. Israel had around eight or nine of these early-generation Patriot systems.

They were then replaced with Israeli-made air defense systems, and Israel planned to return these eight Patriot systems to the United States. During this time, Ukraine repeatedly appealed to both Israel and the U.S. to have these systems modernized, restored, and transferred to Ukraine.

At that time, Israel did not support such an initiative, but now, likely, something has changed. Axios points out that initially, missiles were sent to Ukraine, which can be used with Ukraine's Patriot systems. Later, after these batteries are restored in the U.S., they might be transferred to Ukraine. I sincerely hope that this transfer will finally happen, as it would significantly enhance Ukraine's air defense capabilities.

Russia asks for help from partners

Meanwhile, Russia is relying on its partners, the axis of evil. We know that North Korea is supplying Russia with a significant amount of ammunition. Recently, Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's Defense Intelligence, reported that North Korea is also transferring 170mm Koksan self-propelled artillery systems to Russia, with 120 of these systems already delivered and another 120 expected over the next three to six months. This indicates that Russia is trying to compensate for its artillery and ammunition issues through such partnerships.

And what can be done about this? What are the possibilities for Europe, the U.S., and Ukraine to counter this cooperation between Russia and North Korea? This was discussed by Olena Yurchenko, Director of Analytical, Research, and Investigation Affairs at the Ukrainian Economic Security Council and Senior Analyst at Truman.

Last year, her team conducted a very thorough study focused on artillery and ammunition production in Russia, addressing the problems existing in this area. This research was carried out on commission, or in collaboration with the British Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies. The work was quite comprehensive, important, and interesting. I believe that information is still being gathered, and observation continues regarding developments in Russia in this regard.

"We are definitely continuing to monitor the situation with Russian artillery and ammunition production. The main trend to note here is that it’s not just about production, but also about the restoration of ammunition that the Russian Federation has in its inventory since Soviet times. Consequently, the restoration of these munitions, including artillery barrels, also requires imported products. Secondly, from the Russian Federation's perspective, the existing production capacities for artillery weapons and ammunition are insufficient due to a shortage of labor. Moreover, the overall capital production capacities are overloaded," said Olena Yurchenko.

She noted that Russian factories are operating in three shifts, but the capital equipment is also being heavily worn out due to such overwork. As a result, Russia is forced to turn to its allies, including Iran and North Korea.

"When we talk about all these problems, the main issue lies in the details in the sense that sanctions are not the ideal tool to quickly and effectively impact the production capabilities of the Russian Federation. Imagine a situation where a hypothetical Votkinsk factory or the Kalashnikov factory has a state defense order for a certain number of, for example, guided cruise missiles or ballistic missiles. For this, it needs a large amount of raw materials that are regularly purchased, but also a significant amount of equipment. The problem is that most of this equipment was bought before the sanctions were imposed, back in 2014 or even earlier. The required equipment, components, and consumables needed to maintain this equipment are not under the same strict sanctions as, say, large-scale equipment or specific machinery,” noted the expert.

She emphasized that even if the equipment is under sanctions, the restrictions apply mainly to direct deliveries to Russia. And no one says anything about supplies to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan or China.

Olena Yurchenko stated that ways are being found and will continue to be found.

"From the perspective of the Russian military-industrial complex, the average cost they are forced to spend on purchasing the necessary equipment and raw materials is increasing by a third. And if you add to that the regular sanctioning of intermediaries and the need to buy in large volumes, we end up in a situation where these transactional costs simply accumulate, sometimes reaching up to half the cost of the product on top of what the factory has to pay. So, this is all well and good, but it has only the cumulative effect of a snowball, which is not very obvious right now, firstly,” she believes.

At the same time, from the perspective of assessing the situation with Russian artillery and ammunition supply, the problem lies in the fact that not all data is available. This is especially true for matters such as the import and export of components and raw materials.

"The OSINT data we have regarding the available equipment on balance and what Russia can hypothetically produce or return from repair is not always very representative. This is because we find ourselves in a situation where Ukrainian experts have been proclaiming the end of Russian tank or artillery forces for the third consecutive year, yet, somehow, the Russian Federation still finds resources for both production and decommissioning for restoration. So, the situation is definitely complex, but the fact that Russia is turning to its allies already shows that it is struggling to manage on its own,” said the analyst.

Olena Yurchenko also gave her assessment of what recommendations could be made to partners to somehow influence the restriction of Russia's potential.

"The best sanctions from Ukraine’s perspective are, of course, the physical destruction or kinetic actions against specific Russian manufacturers of certain types of weapons. For example, the Sverdlov plant, which is the only producer of octogen and hexogen in Russia. Or, for example, the company Nozit, the sole producer of ammonium perchlorate, which is needed for solid rocket fuel. Even sanctions against these factories, if they don’t have a direct effect, are still very helpful, such as sanctioning the intermediaries who supply them. But, of course, the best approach is for these companies and factories to be physically disabled and lose production capacities,” she noted.

In her opinion, some members of the sanctions coalitions, particularly in the European Union, need to be more enthusiastic and extensive in their approach to limiting intermediaries involved in the supply chain.

"There are no current cases where, for example, a titanium slab or a package of hexogen or octogen would be directly supplied to a Russian manufacturer like the Votkinsk plant or the Kalashnikov Concern from Europe. The most likely scenario is that the product could be made in Mozambique, Sri Lanka, or Italy, and then shipped to Russia via Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China, or another third jurisdiction. Therefore, many of these intermediaries often remain unnoticed by the sanctions coalition. A breakthrough in this regard is, of course, the practice of the United States, which actively uses secondary sanctions," the expert believes.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, more than 500 companies have been subject to secondary sanctions by the United States, but other members of the sanctions coalition have a lot of work to do. 

"To be honest, not all military factories are under sanctions from some members of the sanctions coalition. And of course, this work involves intermediaries and manufacturers. What is meant by intermediaries: in this case, it is a necessary step when a transaction must go through a bank. That is, working with banks to ensure they can participate in monitoring transactions involving dual-use or military goods. Ultimately, this work with the manufacturers themselves involves educating them, requiring them to properly check the companies they trade with. Because from our experience, including the report you mentioned, almost 90% of the companies we encounter, both Russian importers and foreign suppliers, are often shell companies, clearly created to circumvent sanctions. But for some reason, manufacturers fail to notice these red flags," added Olena Yurchenko.

She also spoke about the intermediation of Kazakhstan. Has the use of this state as an intermediary country in the supply of cotton or other components from other countries changed over this time?

"Kazakhstan is a rather complex case in the sense that it comes under scrutiny from investigators on some issues, such as nitrocellulose. On the other hand, it remains a significant sanctions jurisdiction in that it is frequently used to circumvent them. Considering that the report focused only on the processes and resources needed in the production of artillery, if we believe the trade data we saw for 2024, now the nitrocellulose that Kazakhstan used to supply to the Russian Federation is being purchased by Western countries. In other words, the situation has changed," she said.

However, according to Olena Yurchenko, Kazakhstan is far from being the only country in Central Asia that continues this work. 

"There is, for example, another important component like urotropine, which is necessary for the production of hexogen and octogen, and it also goes through Central Asia. There's another key component, sodium chlorate, which is used for the production of ammonium perchlorate, and thus rocket fuel, and this also goes through Uzbekistan, for example. So, the situation is changing, but sometimes it changes in the sense that one sanctioned (or dual-use) component is replaced by another. In other words, the jurisdiction takes on the role of a transit point for something else. This is often a very precise story of a thousand cuts, and it's very hard to assess in the moment," said Olena Yurchenko, Director of Analytics, Research, and Investigations at the Economic Security Council of Ukraine and Senior Analyst at Truman.

Fighting Russian drones on fiber optics

We have repeatedly said that Russia is actively using fiber-optic drones. These are means of striking, which are quite difficult to destroy in terms of the traditional way of countering FPV drones, in particular, by means of electronic warfare.

And recently, there was an extremely interesting video from the Magyar Birds brigade, which received detectors, radars that can detect drones on fiber optics. And this is what this component, in particular, these radars, were put at the disposal of the Magyar Birds. 

This approach of using radar systems to detect drones, particularly those operating on fiber optics, followed by their destruction with FPV drones, is an innovative and increasingly effective tactic. It has the potential to expand as more radar systems capable of detecting such drones are deployed. This methodology is also applied by Ukraine in the destruction of Russian reconnaissance drones, such as Orlan, Zala, and SuperCam, which are first detected by radar and then neutralized through anti-aircraft defense drones. This strategy helps to counter aerial threats and demonstrates how advancements in technology and drone warfare are being integrated into Ukraine's defense tactics.

So we can say that this is a technological race, and the race is on. And by the way, the Magyar Birds are also equipped with fiber-optic drones that have a range of up to 40 kilometers. So now it is extremely important to have fiber-optic drones and to have the ability to destroy such drones that Russia also has. So, in any case, we need to take the initiative and, most importantly, to scale up those rational, effective developments that we saw in the video.