Ukraine says Taiwanese-made machines and parts feed Russia's missile plants, often inside Chinese tools

Ukraine's military intelligence agency, known as HUR, said on Monday, 26 October, that it had identified 30 pieces of foreign-made production equipment in use at Russian plants that build ballistic missiles and their components. Taiwan was one of seven places of manufacture it named, alongside China, Germany, the United States, Turkiye, Switzerland and Italy. The data was posted on the agency's War and Sanctions portal and reported by Interfax-Ukraine and Rubryka.

According to HUR, the machines are used to make parts such as altimeters, aerodynamic control fins and gyroscopes. The agency said the number of Chinese machine tools and machining centres at these plants, including five-axis models, is growing, and that the Chinese machines themselves depend on European, Japanese and Taiwanese components. It listed computer numerical control systems, servo drives, high-precision spindles and bearings, measuring and rotary systems, linear guides and machining process control devices among them.

HUR's examples included a GX-650 five-axis machining centre built by China's Hyper Machine Tool, which it said is used at the Votkinsk Plant, the maker of 9M723 missiles for the Iskander-M system and the missile section of the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal. It also cited Chinese Shtral turning and milling centres at PEMZ Molot, which produces electronic units for Iskander-M missiles, and German Rohde and Schwarz measuring equipment at UPKB Detal, which makes altimeters for Zircon missiles.

What the list shows

Euromaidan Press, which reviewed the portal entries, reported that 17 of the 30 items were made outside China, and that the batch is a small part of a database listing 1,698 machine tools at 223 Russian plants. Only four of the 30 entries list a ballistic missile among the plant's products, the outlet found, while most of the rest name cruise missiles, glide-bomb kits, guided artillery shells or Geran-2 attack drones. HUR did not publish its underlying evidence, although the portal says partner agencies can request it.

The release came about two weeks after the European Union blacklisted 1,569 Russian arms suppliers and executives, more than half of them in the ballistic missile supply chain according to EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Euromaidan Press noted.

Earlier Taiwanese findings

This is not the first time HUR has pointed to Taiwanese machinery. In November 2025 it published findings from an open-source hackathon saying a Russian research institute, Burevestnik, used a Performa vertical machining centre from Taiwanese firm AKIRA SEIKI to make stabilisers for mortar rounds. The same findings said Russian companies had supplied the Votkinsk Plant with Chinese KEDE and WMT machines and Taiwanese ECOM VL-12i milling centres bought since 2022, Kyiv Post reported at the time.

What Kyiv wants suppliers to do

HUR called for tighter checks on end users, including on-site inspections at the addresses where equipment is declared to be installed, and for controls to cover spare parts, components, technical fluids, consumables, software, updates and maintenance as well as the machines themselves. It also urged regular audits of distributors, dealers and other intermediaries, particularly those serving high-risk jurisdictions, and investigations into every case in which a manufacturer's products turn up in Russian military plants.

Its most far-reaching proposal is to restrict sales of numerical control systems, tools and other components to Chinese machine-tool makers whose equipment reaches Russia's defence industry. Euromaidan Press noted that this recommendation reaches beyond Russia and China to the firms that supply parts for Chinese machines, a group that, by HUR's own account, includes Taiwanese suppliers.

The 26 October summaries did not name the Taiwanese manufacturers behind the latest listings, and HUR's attributions could not be independently verified from the published material.