Intelligence Agency: Secondary sanctions are having very strong impact on Russia
Secondary sanctions are having a very strong impact on reducing the supply of Western components to Russia, Deputy Head of the Main Intelligence Agency of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Major General Vadym Skibitsky said.
"The first step that needs to be taken is to strengthen international sanctions. And we see how the flow of relevant components to Russia is decreasing. So-called secondary sanctions are also having a very strong impact on Russia. These are not direct supplies, but supplies through third countries, through third companies, and so on," he said at the conference "European Defense Industry: Prospects for Cooperation with the Ukrainian Defense Industry" organized by the We Build Ukraine analytical center.
The agency said that many countries, including China, are afraid of secondary sanctions. Skibitsky named "kinetic and non-kinetic influence" as the second direction of the fight against supply chains in Russia. According to him, since 2022, Ukrainian military intelligence has completely switched to NATO standards in this regard, so it works with partners "in the same language."
Skibitsky said that quite a lot of enemy enterprises that are key in the production of weapons were subjected to "both kinetic and non-kinetic influence."
"This is the cyber sphere, this is the information area, other issues. Because without influence, it is impossible to stop production," he said.
Speaking about the results of such influence, the agency said that they are different: there are cases when enterprises stop, and sometimes Russia manages to resume production in two or three months, so it is necessary to "exert influence again."
Skibitsky named the third important point in the issue of stopping supplies as warning and preventing weapons and ammunition from reaching the troops directly, so strikes are carried out on arsenals and storage warehouses. "And here is one of the problems, and we constantly raise it. If we are talking about, for example, ammunition depots located near airfields, this is the need for even more powerful weapons that allow us to destroy everything at once," he said.
As an example, the major general cited a situation when an attack was carried out on one of the enemy's arsenals, half of which was destroyed, and the other half was moved by the enemy to other warehouses and arsenals on Russian territory. And since the territory of Russia is large, it is difficult to hit all these objects now and this requires time and appropriate weapons.
The agency's deputy head called on partners to cooperate, pointing out that Ukrainian intelligence is open and ready for cooperation. "We are ready to exchange all the information that is necessary in order to more powerfully strengthen our influence on the defense-industrial complex of Russia," Skibitsky said.