Despite pledges to break economic ties with Russia, the West remains dependent on a Russian metals firm vital to aerospace, raising security concerns
A vehicle moves a red-hot ingot of titanium alloy before pressing at the VSMPO-AVISMA plant in Verkhnyaya Salda, Russia, in 2018. Western firms bought hundreds of millions of dollars of titanium metal from a Russian company with deep ties to the country’s defense industryThe purchases illustrate how the West remains dependent on Russia for certain products despite pledges to break economic ties with Moscow.
Ukraine is the only country to have placed the Russian firm under sanctions. In September, the U.S. Commerce Department imposed export controls on VSPMO, stating that it was “directly involved in producing and manufacturing titanium and metal products for the Russian military and security services.” Those controls prohibit exports of goods to the company in Russia, not of its titanium to the United States, however.
The U.S. aerospace company Boeing, Airbus’s chief rival, pursued a starkly different track in 2022 when it announced it would stop buying Russian titanium, ending a decades-long relationship with VSMPO and derailing a multimillion-dollar joint venture that had been “Rolls-Royce strictly adheres to applicable export control and sanctions requirements and we are securing alternative supply chain capacity to deliver our transition,” the company said in a statement.
Other firms listed in the Russian database worked on complex programs like the F-35, known for its web of globe-spanning supply chains — including Rolls-Royce, which produces an engine that uses titanium parts for variations of the warplane. Rolls-Royce said it does not comment on defense contracts.
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