Ukraine must unilaterally stop shipping titanium ore concentrate to the Russian Federation. The Ukrainian weekly “Mirror of the Week” writes about this today.
“The Ukrainian side has a certain, perhaps short-term, lever of influence on the geopolitical situation, although it is not even aware of it. According to the State Statistics Service, if in 2015 295 thousand tons of titanium ore worth $72 million were exported, then in 2016 - 463 thousand tons worth $84 million, in 2017 - 583 thousand tons , of which about 35% are directly in the Russian Federation,” the publication writes.
Zerkalo Nedeli claims that Ukrainian titanium ore concentrate is used to make parts of ammunition, elements of Grad installations, new titanium armor VST2, new aircraft and ships.
At the same time, the publication admits that Russia now has the final part of production. Factories located in the Urals produce 30 thousand tons of finished steel and occupy leading positions in the world.
The trouble is that the world's largest aerospace company, Boeing, is a shareholder of these plants and continues to cooperate with Russia, despite the sanctions. “Mirror of the Week” calls for not paying attention to the interests of the Americans, stopping supplies to Russia and creating a full cycle of titanium production at home. This requires only about 2,5 billion dollars.
“Until the fall of 2014, 100% of the needs were covered by supplies from the Ukrainian Volnogorsk and Irshansk. Now supplies from Ukraine have fallen to 40% of demand. The Russians manage to purchase the rest from other sources. But among these “sources” appear private mining and processing plants of the same Dnepropetrovsk and Kirovograd regions of Ukraine,” the weekly reports.