Russia's drone army contains heaps of Western electronics. Can the U.S. cut them off?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

In early 2017, Ukrainian forces battling Russia-backed separatists shot down a drone conducting surveillance over Ukraine's eastern flank.

The unmanned aircraft - nearly six feet long, with a cone-shaped nose and a shiny gray body - had all the external characteristics of a Russian military drone. But when researchers cracked it open, they found electronic components manufactured by half a dozen Western companies.

The engine came from a German company that supplies model-airplane hobbyists. Computer chips for navigation and wireless communication were made by U.S. suppliers. A British company provided a motion-sensing chip. Other parts came from Switzerland and South Korea.

"I was surprised when we looked at it all together to see the variety of different countries that had produced all these components," said Damien Spleeters, an investigator with the U.K.-based Conflict Armament Research (CAR) group, who traveled to Ukraine to dissect several drones. All were loaded with Western electronics.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russias-drone-army-contains-heaps-112946918.html

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Can the US cut them off? Who knows (someone probably does) but I hope that they don't

let the rest of the world know whether these Russian-made electronic components can be shot down/disabled somehow. Let the idiots in Russia who are itching for a fight for the hell of it (so Putin can shift his public's attention to other factors of the Russian economy (not in really great shape)).

[lagomorph777]

2. Maybe we have a back door.

That would be nice. Not all that likely, but not impossible.