Tighter Western restrictions have not cut Russia off from dual-use technologies and sanctioned goods of European and American origin used in Russia’s defense industry. Having adapted to the sanctions, Moscow has widened the geography of supply through third countries — from traditional transit routes in Central Asia to tourist and otherwise atypical destinations in South and Southeast Asia, including the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
On 2 September 2026, The Wall Street Journal reported that one such transit point had become the Maldives, where Russia arranged shipments of aviation spare parts, electronics, microchips, optical equipment and other dual-use goods through the international airport in Malé. According to the WSJ’s assessment, the volume of the Maldivian channel is far smaller than the main “grey import” routes through China, Turkey and the UAE. At the same time, its existence shows that Russian procurement networks can draw even tourist countries into such schemes — countries that previously played no notable role in trade with Russia and were not a focus of sanctions enforcement.
After analyzing air waybills and correspondence among logistics firms, investigators reconstructed the scheme as follows. Dual-use goods from the United States, Europe and China arrive at Malé International Airport, where they are handled by two local intermediary companies — Freight Care and Go Investment. Because the cargo never leaves the airport and is not cleared as ordinary Maldivian import, it undergoes only minimal customs control. Immediately before onward shipment to Russia a new waybill is issued that no longer names the original seller. Citing unnamed Western officials, the WSJ notes that transit cargo in the Maldives is not subject to mandatory physical inspection; control is largely limited to checking transport documents.
WSJ journalists were able to trace, through this scheme, a shipment of equipment from Germany’s Kraemer Mining. In May 2024 the company sold pumps, batteries, V-belts and other goods worth more than €9,000 to Kyrgyzstan’s Peretsvo. The cargo flew on an Emirates flight from Düsseldorf to Malé, where Freight Care handled the paperwork; a few days later it was carried on an Aeroflot flight to Moscow. The new air waybill no longer mentioned Kraemer Mining or the goods’ German origin; the consignee was Krasnoyarsk-based Group of Companies Techno. Notably, neither Kraemer Mining nor the Russian company replied to WSJ inquiries.
Other red flags appeared in the Maldives themselves. At the legal address in Malé where Freight Care was supposedly registered there was no office; next door, however, stood an office of the Russian state airline Aeroflot. Freight Care’s managing director, Hussain Waheed, told the WSJ that the company had handled transit cargo to Russia but denied knowingly facilitating shipments of military-use goods. At the address listed for Go Investment in transport documents, journalists found a small electronics shop; several other companies were also registered at the same address.
According to the Maldives Customs Service, the country’s official exports to Russia in 2022–2025 remained negligible. Russian statistics compiled by Import Genius, however, recorded a jump in imports from the Maldives from less than $7 million in 2021 to more than $630 million in 2022. In 2024 the Maldives imported $243 million of electronic and electrical equipment, about $280 million of machinery and mechanical equipment, and $140 million of aviation equipment and parts. That imbalance, against the backdrop of the cargo re-documentation in Malé documented by the WSJ, is further evidence that the country is being used as a transit hub.
The Maldives is not the only atypical jurisdiction Russia uses to obtain critical technologies. In July 2026 The New York Times reported that one route for Japanese high-tech components into Russia ran through Sri Lanka, from where — as in the Maldivian case — cargo was carried on Aeroflot flights. The paper linked the organization of those purchases to the 20th Directorate of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff. Thailand illustrates another model: according to the U.S. Treasury on 30 October 2024, local firms Bentozer Company Limited and Tsezar Group supplied Russia with electronics, data-transmission equipment and other technology products. Tsezar Group’s shipments in 2023–2024 exceeded $57 million. Taken together, these cases show that Russia uses third countries through different schemes — from air transit to the creation of local corporate procurement channels.
The facts above indicate that Russia can find new intermediaries and rebuild supply routes faster than Western regulators can close the channels already identified. Drawing tourist countries of South and Southeast Asia into such schemes makes it harder to track goods, while regular passenger links with Russia provide ready aviation infrastructure that can also be used for cargo transit. The central problem of sanctions policy is therefore not only identifying individual intermediary companies, but controlling the entire re-export infrastructure — end users, transit cargo, air routes, and the resale of products after their lawful export to a third country. As long as those links remain vulnerable, blocking a single legal entity may simply divert the flow through a new intermediary or another country.
