Recently it became known that Taco LLC, based in Armenia, has been included in a new list of organisations that are under US sanctions against Russia. The list of sanctioned companies has been published on the website of the US Treasury Department.

As reported, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury has expanded the list of individuals and companies subject to anti-Russian sanctions in connection with the so-called "referenda" on joining the Russian Federation in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions and the subsequent attempt to annex these Ukrainian regions. The sanctions list also includes Taco LLC, an Armenian partner of Russia's Radioavtomatika LLC (a supplier of electronic component base used in Russian weapons systems). According to the US Ministry of Finance, Taco LLC was involved in importing electronic components for Radioavtomatika LLC and organizing the procurement process in Armenia.

The sanctions against Armenian companies indicate that the US intends, despite all the influence of the US Armenian lobby, to "shut down" all the channels for Russia to circumvent Western sanctions, which were introduced after Russia's aggression against Ukraine. These channels appeared to have worked successfully until recently precisely through Armenia, as Russia's "ally" in the CSTO. Armenia has been particularly important in obtaining high-tech military and dual-use products from Russia to circumvent sanctions.

Some Armenian media outlets have recently written rapturously that following Russia's aggression against Ukraine, the imposition of sanctions against Russia and the mass relocation of a large number of IT specialists (sometimes together with their firms) to Armenia, Yerevan is becoming a "silicone valley". Many Russian IT companies working for the Western market have moved here from the Russian Federation. But they are not the only ones interested in Armenia.

Seizing advantage of the Armenian jurisdiction's unproblematic access to Western markets, Russia's security services very quickly established a channel through Armenia to "bypass" sanctions and deliver high-tech dual-use developments to Russia. This has become critical for the Russian army and Russian military-industrial complex, as sanctions have transformed many types of weapons produced in Russia into "iron and bolts" of little use in modern warfare. Almost all of Russia's electronics, guidance and navigation systems were manufactured using imported components or foreign designs. As a result, Russia is now forced to waste "old" stocks of missiles in the war against Ukraine, being unable to produce new ones.

However, the Armenian lobby was and still is helping the Kremlin to circumvent sanctions. This is not always done in an open manner, but sometimes it is simply done under the guise of "Armenian patriotism". The same Ruben Vardanyan, who recently formally renounced Russian citizenship and moved via Yerevan to Azerbaijani territory in the zone of responsibility of Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh, is known as one of the main organisers of the Skolkovo project.  The Skolkovo Innovation Centre (often described as "Russia's Silicon Valley" at the time of its launch in 2010-2011) positions itself as a modern scientific and technological innovation complex for the development and commercialisation of new technologies.

Initially, the Russian authorities in Skolkovo intended to establish a Russian equivalent of the US Silicon Valley, located in California, where numerous high-tech enterprises and software developers (including those for military purposes) are concentrated. By the way, California (particularly Los Angeles and its suburbs) has the highest concentration of Armenian population in the USA; many successful Armenian businessmen from this Diaspora are linked to the enterprises of Silicon Valley. Therefore, it is not surprising that representatives of the Armenian diaspora in Russia were also involved in Russia's Silicon Valley, trying to replicate the success of their compatriots in the US by analogy.

The predecessor of the Skolkovo Innovation Centre, on which the Russian state pinned great hopes for a 'breakthrough in cutting-edge technology', was the Skolkovo Business School, which appeared earlier in 2006 and was co-founded and organised by Ruben Vartanyan, a Russian billionaire of Armenian origin. He was also one of the initiators of the Skolkovo Innovation Centre.  The efficiency of investment in the Skolkovo project was extremely low and there has not been any particular "breakthrough research" there in recent years, according to available information. Those involved in the Skolkovo project, the same Ruben Vardanian, got rich from the state budget financing.

Some things were done within the framework of the Skolkovo project. In particular, through some of its structures technological and innovative innovations from the West were borrowed (and possibly even stolen) for their further implementation in enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex. There is no doubt that representatives of the Armenian diaspora in Russia and in the West, including the United States, were involved in this process.

Structures associated with Ruben Vartanyan and other representatives of the Armenian diaspora in Russia legally or illegally purchased or "obtained" foreign military or "dual-use" developments and transferred them to research institutes and enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex. And the military-industrial complex integrated these developments for their use in Russian weapons systems. It is clear that all this was done in the dark, under the guise of the Skolkovo Innovation Center and other structures.  But there is no doubt that Ruben Vardanian is linked to the Russian secret services and was involved in the very process of supplying state-of-the-art foreign developments for the needs of the Russian military-industrial complex.

Vardanyan apparently continues to do the same while being in the zone of responsibility of Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh. He is still very much in the public eye for bringing high-tech specialists "to Armenia and 'Artsakh' to 'share scientific experience'".

Vardanian's current mission in Karabakh is most likely not only to support separatism and revanchists, but also to organise the very channel for circumventing sanctions through Armenia. Through these channels the Russian Federation can receive much needed high-tech military developments and imported components for weapons systems.

A "cover" for these channels is also ties with the Western Armenian diaspora. Here, too, it appears that the "most ancient nation" performs its functions as "double agents" in both directions.

 Kavkaz Plus has already written about how the Armenian "fifth column" works in Russia for the US interests. But there is also a "reverse process", with quite exotic scandals erupting here from time to time. In particular, Jamie Lee Henry, a retired transgender soldier (a former woman "converted" into a man), his wife and former military doctor and professional anesthesiologist Anna Gabrielyan were recently prosecuted in the US. They intended to transfer to Russia personal medical information of US servicemen, to which they had official access. Understandably, the case is insignificant in the scale of the geopolitical confrontation between the US and Russia, but it is very revealing. There is no doubt that other much more important information is being illegally transferred to the Russian Federation through Yerevan and the Armenian diaspora in the US.

The Armenian channel of espionage, circumvention of sanctions and smuggling components for Russian weapons to Russia has been in full swing for almost eight months since Russia's aggression against Ukraine. But it seems that the US State Department, which has recently been actively "grooming" the regime in Yerevan for the ultimate "geopolitical screw-up" of Russia, has decided to shut down this channel. And this happens just after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Yerevan and made her theatrical tears at the "genocide" memorial.

Giorgi Mazniashvili