The majority of the Russian deadliest short-range ballistic missiles contains at least 70 percent of foreign component consisting of companies with U.S. headquarters. It is the discovery of Ukrainian investigators who analyzed the ruins of the weapons that have flattened schools, hospitals, and houses. The revelation poses a startling query, how is it that American technology continues to find itself in the hands of the Kremlin despite far reaching sanctions?
On April 4, 2025, a missile an Iskander 9M723 flew into a playground in Kryvyi Rih, killing 20 people, including 9 children, and injuring an 8-year-old boy Matviy Holovko. This explosion was not merely a tragedy; it was an example in the world supply chain, law enforcement failures, and industrial expansions that keep the war of missiles by Russia alive.
This list is a breakdown of the most humiliating details of the attack, the weapon, and the system that supports it between the human expense and the geopolitical and technological weak points that it reveals.
1. The Playground assault That Took the Lives of Nine Kids.
Matviy Holovko, who was running after his toddler nephew in one of the Kryvyi Rih playgrounds on a warm spring evening, heard an aerial explosion of an Iskander 9M723, which was moving at six times the speed of sound. According to the Kremlin, it wanted to have a military rendezvous; there were mainly civilians on camera. Swings, cars, shops that were near by were torn apart by the shrapnel. The mother of Matviy threw her body around him, and was killed on the spot. His left arm was cut to tatters. The April 4 strike was the largest confirmed killing of Ukrainian children in a single attack that took place in the course of the war.
2. U.S. Technology Missile embedded in Russia.
Ukraine investigators found 83 pieces of the missile, 3 of which were burnt polymers, 3 were fragments of the fuel tank, and 3 slivers of the rudder. They have never discovered the guidance probable that microelectronics was probably destroyed by Ukrainian military intelligence but more than 5,200 foreign components in Russian weapons have been listed by Ukrainian military intelligence, of which approximately 70 percent are of U.S.-based companies. Intel, Analog Devices, Texas Instruments and AMD parts have been reported to be used over and over. According to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who informed the executives in 2024, Russian bombs, missiles, and drones aided by the American technologies are literally killing the Ukrainians.
3. Sanctions avoidance via Global supply chains.
This is even after export controls, since 2022, the Western-made semiconductors, sensors, and circuit boards are continuing to reach Russia through Chinese, Turkish, UAE, and Central Asian middlemen. According to Western analysts working at the Kyiv School of Economics, a Western company is legally free to sell to the partner of the third country, which in turn can resell it at times with several layers until it reaches Russia. This cat-and-mouse game is enhanced by offshore production, i.e. the parts can never be touched by Western customs.
4. The political and legal pressures on the U.S. Chipmakers.
In 2025, Ukrainian citizens sued large chip companies in Texas indicating that the companies carelessly did not monitor their products that were sold to Russians and Iranian weapons. Plaintiffs demand funeral and medical expenses, punitive damages to make them comply. Attorney Mikal Watts compared the chips to the car steering wheels that have no steering wheels the missiles make no sense. Businesses respond by saying that they stopped doing business with Russians in 2022 and they have no complete control over distribution once the products are introduced into the world market.
5. The Wartime Enlargement of the Votkinsk Plant.
Satellite surveillance and open documents indicate that the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant where Iskanders are assembling has increased its production by three times after 2022 and now produces 60 to 70 missiles per month. Sanctions did not stop the surge because of imported CNC machining systems in China, Taiwan, and Belarus. An increase in workforce of 2,500 and new workshops has also supported an astronomical increase in the number of strikes: 245 Iskander launches in 2024, and the Kremlin fired 12 times more at the end of 2025 than in 2023.
6. In the Missile Race and Interceptor Race, Cost Asymmetry.
The price of Iskander-M unit, which is owned by Russian state company, is approximately 400-500 000, and a PAC-3 MSE interception is priced at 4 million in the United States. An average battle with 6 Iskanders may cost between 48-72 million dollars in interceptors compared to the monthly cost of Russian ballistic production. Western interceptor shooting is limited and Ukrainian Patriot units have been exhausted to allow Russia to create a strategic asymmetry that it can exploit by saturation shooting.
7. Falling Intercept Rates versus Iskandars.
The statistics of Ukrainian researchers and CSIS reflect a negative tendency of intercept rates of 9M723 missiles in the Patriot-defended airspace, which amount to 37% of the surveyed areas in the middle of 2025 and 17% in October. Hypothetical reasons are proposed by analysts: sharper ballistics and greater velocity and maneuverability, better decoys such as enhanced 9B999 models, and combined salvos to saturate the defenses. The fact that the missile has been able to go round the advanced systems further illustrates that the offensive and defenses go through a continuous cycle of adapting to one another.
8. New Potential Menace of the Iskander-1000.
Leaked Russian reports show that there has been mass production of a derivative of the 9M723-2 dubbed Iskander-1000 with a range of 1,000km (sufficient to strike Oslo, Hamburg or Warsaw at the farthest tip of the Kaliningrad region). The variant is still dependent on Western-crafted parts, some of which belong to companies that are not subject to any sanctions. The officials of Ukraine are afraid that such missiles may be sold to other allies such as Iran or North Korea, extending the risk beyond Europe.
9. The Rehabilitation in the midst of a generation of amputees.
Matviy became a soldier with one arm amputated who was sent to a rehabilitation center in the west Ukraine operated by Superhumans, a non-profit organization offering prosthetics, reconstructive surgery, and psychological treatment. The demand is enormous: over 20,000 Ukrainians have been amputated since the year 2022, and they expect 50,000 people to require a prosthetic at the end of the year. Superhumans and Esper Bionics are at full capacity with advanced myoelectric limbs available at low cost, however, they need donations to fulfill the demand.
The Kryvyi Rih playground strike was not the local tragedy but rather a meeting of industrial potentials, gaps in sanctions, and the reliance on technologies, which goes long beyond Ukraine. The story behind every recovered fragment of a missile is one about global supply chains and enforcement failures and of a defense race where cost, speed and adaptation are the life and death issues. To policymakers and industry leaders, the message is simple: until there is a sealing of the loopholes that have enabled approved technology to drive the machinery of Russia, the killing spree will not end, and more playgrounds will go down.
