Yermak-McFaul group calls for IT sanctions against russia

russia's war against Ukraine has already become the most technologically extensive in history, which is why sanctions and other solutions are necessary to weaken the aggressor's military and economic potential.

Rubryka reports, referring to the press service of the Office of the President.

An independent group of international experts on sanctions against russia has developed a detailed document that lists all the IT technologies that should be taken away from the criminal regime.

The main recommendation of the document is a call to block the russian federation from using or receiving IT that contains software, firmware, and components produced by any country that has imposed sanctions.

"While many sanctioning countries have imposed restrictions on the sale of military components and support systems to russia, foreign software, services, technical infrastructure, intellectual property, and other less tangible items are not yet subject to sanctions or restrictions.

That is why our expert group took up this issue and offers specific effective measures," Yermak emphasized.

Information and communication technologies, microelectronics, and intellectual property (after this IT) form the basis of the military, military-industrial complex, and government of russia in general.

The enemy relies on foreign IT to command its army, conduct fire, conduct surveillance, control the information space, attack Ukrainian cyber and civilian infrastructure, and protect its infrastructure.

Foreign technologies used by russia cover everything:

• advanced email servers,
• network management capabilities,
• smart devices,
• software applications as a service,
• video streaming services,
• systems of automated design and production (CAD/CAM),
• capabilities of building information modeling (BIM), robotic components, device controllers,
• software for design, manufacturing, and simulation.

After invading Ukraine on February 24, russia began requisitioning foreign IT and microelectronic components from consumer goods for military use.

Companies in countries that have imposed sanctions have mostly been forced to choose whether to continue working in russia and how to change their operations in that country. This leaves a potentially wide gap between the intent to sanction countries and the activities of IT companies under their jurisdiction.

The russian government maintains many proprietary technologies and software systems to secure communications, spoof radar, GPS, and AIS signals, intercept and interfere with radio and satellite systems, filter Internet traffic, and perform various signal processing tasks.

These systems are often part of legacy technology packages mixed with today's advanced capabilities. Such systems rely on fragile human knowledge networks in case of problems.

Therefore, the sale of IT technologies and related capabilities to entities within russia and their maintenance (directly or indirectly) must be stopped immediately.

This document provides an analysis of the areas that should be immediately sanctioned, an explanation of how to do so, and how the relevant technologies support russia's military infrastructure and military operations in Ukraine.

The working paper recommends that concerned governments and IT companies take immediate action to:

• Block access to IT that supports the russian military machine and its use against Ukraine. russian ammunition, missiles, guidance systems, artillery, defense weapons, several types of heavy equipment, tanks, submarines, etc., are based on components or production technologies that do not directly belong to russia.
• Block access to IT enabling russia to conduct information and cyber warfare against Ukraine and others. Social and advertising media, traditional media, and strategically planned propaganda campaigns against key political figures in Ukraine, the sanctioning states, and the russian opposition are part of a program of continuous and comprehensive manipulation of public opinion, sowing confusion and distorting public messages in favor of russia.

According to Andrii Yermak, the co-coordinator of this working group, tough IT sanctions will be a severe obstacle to the russian military machine in its operations against Ukraine and to russia's ability to use its information machine against Ukraine, the West, and russian population.