Russia's ability to acquire foreign machine tools despite Western sanctions allows the country to increase its production of tank and artillery barrels - a key factor for the Kremlin's military-industrial complex.
This was warned by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The Ukrainian open-source media outlet Frontelligence Insight reported on February 9, citing internal Russian procurement documents, that Russia is modernizing the Uralmash Plant No. 9, which produces barrels for the Coalition and Msta self-propelled howitzers. and for various Russian tanks, including the T-14 "Armata", the T-90, and the modernized T-62 and T-72.
Frontelligence Insight reported that Russia is modernizing Plant No. 9 "Uralmash" since 2016 and that the plant has acquired at least 22 machine tools made by companies in Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy for its production needs.
Frontelligence Insight notes that Russia has decided that it cannot offset its dependence on foreign machine tools for its military-industrial complex and that the documents show that Russia is confident in its ability to acquire these machine tools despite Western sanctions.
According to data, as of October 2024, Russia was able to produce about 50 artillery pieces per year - which represents a serious obstacle to Russia's ability to produce new and maintain existing artillery systems.
Russia has not been able to produce tanks and artillery systems to compensate for the losses of these systems in Ukraine, but successful schemes to circumvent sanctions may allow Russia to increase the pace of production and modernization of artillery systems in particular.
The production of precision machine tools needed by Russia's defense industry has declined over the past 30 years, and Russia is increasingly reliant on China for the supply of these machines.
Russia is likely to continue to step up its efforts to circumvent sanctions to acquire foreign machinery for both its short- and long-term armaments efforts, underscoring the critical importance of Western sanctions in countering these efforts and deterring Russia's military machine.
On February 10, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov continued to explicitly blame the United States for the lack of progress in ending Russia's war against Ukraine and again invoked the spring 2022 Istanbul talks to justify Russia's rejection of providing meaningful security guarantees to Ukraine.
The Kremlin restricted Telegram to 9 and 10 February. This is a clear signal of an intensification of Russia’s three-year campaign to regain control of the Russian information space.
The Kremlin has been engaged in a large-scale censorship campaign to regain control of the Russian information space since late 2022, when the Kremlin began censoring, arresting, and co-opting Russian military bloggers who criticized the Kremlin and its methods of waging war in Ukraine.
Russian authorities justified their initial efforts to deliberately restrict Telegram by accusing the platform of allowing fraudsters to carry out scams against Russian citizens.
The Kremlin introduced the state-controlled messaging app Max in March 2025 and is trying to attract and force Russian citizens to abandon other messaging platforms in favor of Max.
However, the Max platform remains largely unpopular among Russians.
The Kremlin is likely restricting Telegram more significantly now to incentivize Russians to switch to Max, as previous Russian efforts in this direction have been largely ineffective. Telegram founder Pavel Durov estimated on February 10 that Russia is restricting access to Telegram in order to force Russian citizens to switch to Max.
Unconfirmed media reports suggest that Japan may fund non-lethal military aid to Ukraine through the "Priority Ukraine Needs List" (PURL) initiative.
In late January 2026, NATO aircraft intercepted another Russian fighter jet near NATO airspace in the Baltic Sea.
Ukrainian forces have recently advanced into the Dobropilya tactical zone. Russian forces have recently advanced into the northern part of Sumy Oblast, into the Konstantinovka-Druzhkovka tactical zone near Khulyaypole, and into the western part of Zaporizhia Oblast.