With Russian IT specialists settling in Central Asia, Moscow's military is left reeling

KYIV -- The departure of tens of thousands of information technology (IT) workers from Russia is exposing significant deficiencies in the nation's military-industrial complex.

Nikita, a 31-year-old IT specialist from Russia who now lives in Astana, said he started thinking about leaving Russia right after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.

"I was displeased about what was happening. Also, I wasn't particularly happy about the possibility that I would have to take part in all of this if a mobilisation [draft] was announced," he said.

"So, in September 2022 when the mobilisation began, my wife and I loaded up our dog and left," said Nikita, whose last name is withheld for safety concerns.

"Now I'm meeting a lot of people here who are like us," he said. "Many people left for Kazakhstan. Many went to Asian countries, Uzbekistan -- countries that are nearby."

"I've heard stories of entire offices picking up and going. I have a friend ... He told me that his boss phoned them all and said, 'Everyone, we're packing up and going to Kazakhstan, then we'll figure out what we can do next'... they all left," he said.

Nikita said he is now looking for assignments with European and American companies and is not contacting employers from Russia.

"We definitely aren't planning to go home. We want to move on from here," he said. "We have our sights set on a big and global target: the United States."

"Russia saw up to 1.3 million people leave the country in 2022, including many younger and well-educated people in high-value industries," the British Ministry of Defence wrote in an intelligence update posted on Twitter on May 7.

About 100,000 IT specialists -- 10% of the country's workers in the field -- had left Russia since the invasion, Maksut Shadayev, the Russian minster of digital development and communications, acknowledged late last year.

Reasons for leaving included fear of being drafted, disagreement with the invasion, fear of arrest for anti-government attitudes and sometimes an apolitical desire to work free of anti-Russia sanctions imposed by the global community.

A crippled defence sector

"All the brains have left Russia," said Nadezhda Balovsyak, an IT specialist and professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine.

"[Businesses] are having problems even setting up a server that enables something like Yandex or VKontakte to function," she said. "Now they're having trouble just buying a new printer."

"They can't make their own servers because no one is selling chips. Without a chip or microchip, nothing will work -- not a phone, a fitness tracker or a server," Balovsyak explained.

Russia's military, meanwhile, has been forced to rely on imports.

But sanctions have limited the Kremlin's choices, and Iran and China are Russian President Vladimir Putin's only partners who are willing to sell military technology or weapons, said Oleksiy Hetman, a veteran of the Russia-Ukraine war and major in the Ukrainian reserves.

"High-precision manufacturing requires a great deal of knowledge and technology," he said.

"Now the Russians need to buy everything they can find. They need to buy the technologies, electronics and microelectronics because they simply don't have their own manufacturing or technology," he said. "These things go hand in hand."

"The high-quality components are European, American and Japanese," Hetman said. "Chinese components are somewhat worse."

"What sets China apart is that it produces massive quantities," he said. "But it's not exporting what you'd call high-quality items ... everyone knows what 'Made in China' [means]."

Dependence on China, Iran

Facing sanctions and lacking the know-how to domestically produce microchips and semiconductors, Russia has had to rely on Chinese substitutes with failure rates as high as 40%, as Kommersant reported last year.

They are at the mercy of Chinese vendors who know that Russia has to pay what they want.

Such chips -- purchasable from Chinese online retail service AliExpress -- have reportedly been used in Russian arms such as the 9M544 guided missiles for the Russian Tornado-S multiple launch rocket system.

Russia is also dependent on Iranian-made drones for air support and attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure.

To date, Russia has launched more than 1,000 Iranian suicide drones, killing and wounding countless civilians.

But even such tactics are hard pressed against Ukrainian ingenuity and the military's ability to evolve quickly in the face of threats.

Ukraine May 25 said its forces shot down 36 Iranian-made Shahed drones that Russia used to attack western Ukraine.

"The enemy likely aimed to attack critical infrastructure and military facilities in the western regions of the state," the Ukrainian air force said on Telegram.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was "not an easy night".

"Continuing to terrorise Ukraine, the enemy used 36 Shahed [drones]," he wrote on the Telegram messaging app. "None of them reached their target. Thanks to our air defence forces for the 100% result."