Russia replaces US components in its attack drones with Chinese ones, Ukrainian intelligence says

The electronic warfare part of Russian Shahed attack drones has almost lost its dependence on American components. Source: War&Sanctions project of Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) Details: Defence Intelligence of Ukraine has released information on almost 200 new parts and components used in six types of Russian weapons.

Among them are a Russian Shahed's CRP antenna, a North Korean KN-24 ballistic missile, a computer from the Kh-47 Kinzhal missile, and Supercam S350, Gerbera, and Zala UAVs.

Only two US-made chips were found in the new CRP antennas for the Geran-2 (Geranium-2) drone, the intelligence service said. This indicates Russia's attempts to reduce its dependence on components from countries that have imposed sanctions against it. Earlier, DIU reported that new jamming antennas with Chinese language labelling appeared in the Shahed drones used in 2025.

Out of 15 components in one of these antennas, only two are made by the American companies Texas Instruments and Linear Technologies.

Most of the other parts are made in China, including transceivers, generators, signal converters, and other chips. For example, the Beijing Microelectronics Technology Institute (BMTI) makes the main chip of the CRP antenna, which analyses incoming signals and decides which ones to ignore. For the first time, a component made in India - a clock buffer from Aura Semiconductor - was found in Russian weapons.

It is noted that the manufacturers of two other components have not yet been identified, but they are likely to be of Chinese origin.

In total, the Components in Weapons section of the War & Sanctions website has already recorded 4,672 parts found in 164 weapons used by Russia against Ukraine.

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