China Steps Up Missile Production Amid West's Machine Tool Lockdown

The Financial Times once reported that when the Russian army was producing the "Oreshnik" ultra-precision warhead, it found that the Western machine tools it relied on were blocked, which instantly put Russia into a production suspension crisis. At the same time, the US Treasury Department released documents showing that many Russian CNС market intermediaries and manufacturing companies were sanctioned. Involving key areas such as electronic equipment and CNC parts. China's mass production fills the gap Just after the West got rid of it, China's machine tool industry quickly filled the market gap. According to Reuters analysis, China's CNC systems exported to Russia accounted for 90% of its total imports in 2024. United 24 Media also showed that about 80% of the tools and automation equipment used by the Russian army came from China, and at the same time, the chain was completed from Taiwan, Belarus and other places. Whether it is a new Taiwan-made spot or a packaged machine shipped from China, Chinese equipment with both quantity and price just fills the entire market withdrawn by the West. War factory expansion
Supported by imported equipment, Russia's Votkinsk Machine-Building Plant has ushered in a wave of expansion.

The Kiev Independent reported that since the end of 2023, the plant has built several new workshops and employed thousands of technicians.

The internal expansion of the Votkinsk plant

Invested tens of millions of dollars in machinery and equipment, and the production capacity doubled rapidly.

According to RUSI and Ukrainian intelligence, Russia will produce 700 "Iskander-M" ballistic missiles in 2024,

which is nearly three times the 250 in 2023; at the same time, the frequency of shelling has increased from 45 times to 245 times.

As of the first half of 2025, the Russian army has launched Iskander missiles more than 180 times, with a reserve of about 600 M-type and 300 K-type.

Then the question is, what supports this amazing increase in production?

Breaking through sanctions
The study found that Russia exported reorganized machine tools to China, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, etc. through transit.
Some equipment first flowed into the Middle East or Central Asia, and then transferred to Russia.
This masking method made it difficult for Western original manufacturers to trace, and the sanctioned marginal areas were fully utilized.
The FT also pointed out that even the controllers of Chinese-made machine tools are still mostly equipped with Western systems (Siemens, Fink and Heidenhain),
which shows that even if the source of machine hardware is mostly from China, China's manufacturing itself is also rapidly localizing control modules.
In addition, according to the business information platform, many Chinese listed companies also export machine tool parts to Russian private companies.
Among them, the system with high-precision transmission parts has been used in missile manufacturing.
Production chain autonomy
The West is unwilling to see the sanctions fail and has high hopes for Russian-made machine tools.
In fact, Russia has continued to invest in self-developed equipment capabilities in the past three years.
Some sanctioned companies such as STAN and Baltic Industrial are actively producing "Swiss-type" Cnc Machine tools, which can replace Western imported machines.
It is reported that by 2024, Russia's domestic procurement volume has accounted for about 30% of imported CNC machine tools.

However, compared with China, self-developed production capacity is still in its early stages and is far from meeting the peak demand for ammunition.

"Multiple supply" mechanism

All of this converges into a supply chain of "Western lock-in-China import-transit disguise-self-developed supplement",

which enables Russia's core missile factories, especially the Votkinsk factory and other key combat readiness units, to be put into production continuously without artificial obstacles.

Ballistic missile production will triple in 2024, and high-frequency production will continue in the first half of 2025,

and significant stockpiling will be formed to form strategic reserves for future conflicts.

At the same time, NATO documents point out that Russia now has the ability to produce Iskander,

Yars, Bulava, and even the new "Oreshnik",

plus the "Western-Chinese hybrid" model in the field of CNC systems, which makes its dependence on strategic weapons production structurally shifting.

Since China's "large quantity and enough" is a fact, what else can the West do?

The West's "escalated response": the second half of sanctions

Facing a breakthrough supply chain, the West is trying the following measures:

Expand the global high-quality goods list and include re-exports from third countries such as China and Hong Kong in the scope of control ,

Strengthen the export invitation code for machine tool control systems, such as Siemens,

The export of new equipment from Heidenhain needs to be pre-screened in advance and restricted from re-authorization ,

Join the G7 countries to urge the Chinese government to fulfill its export management obligations and enhance cross-border real-time tracking and rapid detection capabilities .

However, it seems that these measures are still in the planning and early warning stage,

The real execution depends on the actual cooperation efficiency of various countries, and the short-term impact is still limited.

Russia-China dependence: not one-way

Although it relies heavily on Chinese equipment, Russia is also trying to increase the proportion of self-research.

Exporters such as STAN and Baltic Industrial announced that they will continue to win national procurement orders from the end of 2023,

The goal is to replace Chinese imports in 3-5 years.

China is also more cautious about the export border of "dual-use" machine tools.

According to the Financial Times, some companies in the Chinese supply chain have been implicated by Western sanctions due to trading equipment, and are strengthening self-inspection and risk avoidance mechanisms. This shows that although Russia and China cooperate to break the sanctions blockade,

they also have different goals in the long-term strategy: Russia's "independence under enhanced sanctions" and China's "compliant exports + avoidance of escalation".

Summary

From "Western lock-in sanctions" to "Russia's missile output doubled", this is a typical "supply arc",

China's "large quantity and sufficient" counterattack filled the gap in the middle, and formed a chain matrix through third-country disguise and self-research.

Western sanctions did put pressure on Russia, but were eventually resolved by multiple strategies.

This "contest of sanctions and counter-sanctions" is actually just entering a new round of technology pursuit.

For the West, this is not a conflict that "sanctions can solve", but more like a protracted war.

If the West wants to "plug the loopholes", it must first admit that the form of sanctions has shifted from "single blockade" to "full-chain regulatory confrontation".

Summary
Sanctions have never been a panacea. The current ability of Russia to double its missile production and reserve combat power is the result of the interaction of institutions, supply chains, markets and national strategies.

The West, which is now unwilling to admit the failure of sanctions and is still looking for excuses for failure, may not be able to face reality, which is the biggest flaw of the West.