A joint investigation between the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Reuters and iStories shows that despite sanctions introduced against Russia, critical Western manufactured components are still being traded to Russian companies involved in production of Russia's UAV Orlan used in attacks on Ukraine. The report also alleges that exports of these components has significantly increased since the beginning of the invasion in February 2022 and that they are being shipped to Russia by a variety of distributors based in the United States, Europe, China, South Korea and Hong Kong.

Business and Human Rights Resource Centre invited companies mentioned in the report to respond. Analog Devices, U-blox, Microchip Technology, STMicroelectronics, Qorvo, Texas Instruments, Gumstix, Supermicro and NXP Semiconductors provided responses available below. Xilinx, SIMcom, IK Tech Corporation, JST Manufacturing, Industrial Components Weirich, GA Universal, Luchengtech and Xinghua did not respond.