The U.S. enterprise supplied equipment to Russian air defense manufacturer – Reuters

The American technology company Extreme Networks, was despite sanctions supplying the network equipment to the Russian anti-aircraft missiles manufacturer for the S-400 SAM.

Reuters reports this, citing its own investigation.

According to the media, between 2017 and 2021, the MMZ Vanguard (Moscow Machine Manufacturing Plant) was acquiring equipment from Extreme Networks for its IT systems in the amount of over half a million dollars. Reuters journalists received such information from business documents and interviews with the American company’s employees.

Russia purchased high-speed switches, a building block for the corporate IT networks, along with software.

Transactions were run through a company registered in the Moscow region.

In April, six weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, an Extreme employee filed an internal complaint, which was reviewed by Reuters journalists.

That complaint states that the American company’s equipment is used “on Russian warships in communication systems.”

Extreme Networks replied to Reuters that the accusation came from an employee who was fired “for unsatisfactory performance.”

They also claimed to have conducted an internal investigation and found no violations.

The report on Extreme Networks supplying parts to Vanguard MMZ and at least two other Russian military companies was based on interviews with three people familiar with the shipments, as well as a review by Reuters of documents spanning five years to 2021.

The documents include sales reports and email exchanges between Extreme Networks employees, customers, and distributors.

Reuters states that while the United States and allies banned high-tech exports to Russia to try to cripple its defense industry, and many tech companies announced that they had halted exports to Russia, the flow of Western brand-name computer parts to Russian clients hasn’t stopped.