Here's just one of the many ways Trump can turn the screw on Putin's arms making
The best Russian cruise and ballistic missiles, drones and tanks all include processors, navigation systems or radios that have tantalum capacitors. But most of the tantalum comes from abroad – the Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazil and China are main suppliers – and sanctions imposed by the United States and various European countries have squeezed that supply.
'While Russia has its own tantalum deposits, they are significantly smaller,' Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight reported earlier this year. Moreover, 'Russia lacks advanced processing facilities to produce high-quality tantalum powder needed for capacitors.'
The bottom line is that sanctions 'are actually working,' Frontelligence concluded. But will sanctions survive the chaotic, authoritarian administration of US president Donald Trump?
That Russian industry is struggling to produce enough new weapons to sustain the country's 35-month wider war on Ukraine is evident along the 800-mile front line. Running low on modern armoured vehicles after losing 15,000 of them to Ukrainian action, Russian regiments first turned to old Cold War vehicles they pulled out of long-term storage.
But even these aged vehicles are running low. More and more, Russian troops attack Ukrainian positions in civilian cars, vans and golf carts – or on foot. The shift to unarmoured transportation and infantry-first tactics has driven average daily casualties to new highs. It's not uncommon for 2,000 Russians to be killed or wounded in a single day.
At the same time, the Russians are losing control of the air over critical sectors as Ukrainian drones outfly and outnumber Russian drones. 'The enemy has achieved sufficient scale and variety in its drones and has honed its tactics for their use,' one Russian blogger warned.
A tantalum shortage is one factor in declining Russian arms production. Russian factories used to import processed African, Chinese and South American tantalum from a single large facility in Kazakhstan. But Kazakhstan has joined the sanctions regime, throttling the flow of the processed mineral powder. The Russians have tried to buy more processed tantalum from China, but the quality has been poor.
According to Frontelligence, Russian industry needs 1,700 pounds of high-grade processed tantalum a month. To fulfill existing contracts for new weapons over the coming months, Russian factories need more than 4.5 tons of the mineral – but the current stockpile weighs a little more than two tons. There are 'no immediate solutions for procurement' of the other two tons, Frontelligence assessed.
To make up the gap, Russian industry could buy more 'dual-use' tantalum components – those designed for commercial products but suitable for weapons, as well. Passed from intermediary to intermediary and finally shipped to Russia from countries that aren't signatories to the sanctions regime, the dual-use components arrive slowly – and at higher cost than Russian buyers would want.
But they do arrive. Closing off this last source of tantalum should be a priority for foes of Russia and friends of Ukraine. 'Companies involved in the production or trade of tantalum powder or capacitors … must face the prospect of losing access to Western markets if detected trading with Russia,' Frontelligence urged.
It's equally likely sanctions will loosen, however, as the new Trump administration enacts an extreme and at times bizarre agenda. One of Trump's first actions was to halt all foreign aid, including support for Ukraine. Trump focused much of his energy in the days that followed threatening Danish leaders in an inexplicable bid to annex Greenland as a US territory.
Without American buy-in, there's almost no prospect of a stricter sanctions regime that might finally halt the trickle of tantalum into Russia. By doing nothing – or worse, unwinding existing sanctions – the US government, once the Russian arms industry's greatest foe, could rescue that industry from tantalum starvation.
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