Brussels has announced 13 rounds of sanctions against Russia with great fanfare. Thirteen packages of restrictions, asset freezes, export bans—each one celebrated as proof that Europe takes its support for Ukraine seriously.
So explain this: Russian Geran-2 kamikaze drones attacking Ukrainian cities contain components manufactured by at least 19 European companies, including Austrian firms, according to an international investigation by Der Standard.
The Geran-2 has become Russia's weapon of choice in the war: cheap, mass-producible, and lethally effective. Ukrainians recognize the distinctive rattling sound—like a "sputtering moped," one report describes—as the drone approaches. That sound is followed by explosions in residential neighborhoods, infrastructure sites, civilian targets.
And inside those drones? European technology. Austrian components. Chips and circuits from EU member states that have spent three years voting for sanctions packages in Brussels.
This is the gap between EU rhetoric and EU reality. The European Commission announces sanctions; member states enforce them—or don't. Brussels passes regulations; national customs authorities implement them—or fail to. The Commission congratulates itself on "unprecedented unity" while European-made parts travel through third countries, shell companies, and sanctions-evasion networks to end up in Russian weapons factories.
EU officials will point to the complexity of global supply chains, the difficulty of tracking dual-use components, the challenge of enforcement when goods move through Turkey, Kazakhstan, China. All true. But that complexity doesn't make the components any less European, or the drones any less deadly.
The investigation mentions Austrian firms specifically, though details remain limited due to the source article's paywall. What's clear is the pattern: European technology, Russian drones, Ukrainian casualties. Thirteen sanctions rounds later.
This isn't about blaming individual companies—many components have legitimate civilian uses and were likely exported legally before the war. But three years into Russia's full-scale invasion, European components are still reaching Russian weapons manufacturers. That's an enforcement failure, and it's happening at the member state level where Brussels has limited authority.
The EU's sanctions architecture is impressive on paper: export controls, financial restrictions, technology bans coordinated across 27 member states. But sanctions only work if they're enforced. If European customs officials don't catch suspicious shipments. If member states don't investigate how components reach Russia through third countries. If European companies don't scrutinize their supply chains and distribution networks.
Brussels can announce sanctions packages until Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen runs out of press conference podiums. But if Austrian, German, French, or Italian components still end up in Geran-2 drones hitting Ukrainian civilians, what are those sanctions actually achieving?
The European Commission doesn't run customs checkpoints. It doesn't prosecute sanctions violations. Those are member state responsibilities—and member states, consumed by domestic politics and economic pressures, often lack the resources or will to enforce aggressively.
So the drones keep flying, rattling like sputtering mopeds before they hit. And inside them: European technology that Brussels announced it had banned, traveling routes that member states failed to close.
Brussels decides more than you think. Except when it doesn't—when enforcement falls to national governments more interested in economic relationships than sanctions compliance. Then Brussels decides nothing at all, and European chips end up in Russian weapons.
Thirteen sanctions rounds. Nineteen European companies. One question: if Europe can't keep its own technology out of Russian drones after three years of war, what exactly are all those Brussels press conferences for?
