Intel, AMD accused of 'willful ignorance' in allowing chips to get to Russia

(Image credit: Shutterstock / lockon16)

Ukrainian civilians are suing Intel, AMD, and TI, alleging their chips ended up in Russian weapons
Lawsuit claims “willful ignorance,” citing third‑party resellers and attacks that killed civilians
Firms deny wrongdoing, saying they halted Russia sales and comply with all export sanctions

Three giants of the US computer hardware industry - Intel, AMD, and Texas Instruments - are being sued by “dozens” of Ukrainian civilians. The plaintiffs are arguing that these companies decided to look the other way whilst Russia used their hardware to build bombs which later killed Ukrainian citizens.

According to Bloomberg, the plaintiffs are being represented by an American law firm, Baker Hostetler, and are saying the three firms demonstrated “willful ignorance” since Russia was able to buy the hardware from third parties to whom the three firms sold their products.

Among the third parties is Mouser Electronics which allegedly helped Russian proxies obtain the hardware. Its VP of Marketing, Kevin Hess, told Bloomberg that the company did not want to discuss the matter over media, but rather - in the courtroom.

Google employees against warfare

Bloomberg says, citing filings which aren’t public yet, that the plaintiffs detailed five attacks between 2023 and 2025 that killed “dozens” of people, and in at least one of those incidents, Iranian-made drones were used, which also contained Intel and AMD parts.

“These companies know their chip technology is making its way into Russia,” Watts, a veteran US mass-tort lawyer, said at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday morning.

Intel, on the other hand, told the publication that it doesn’t do business in Russia, suspended all shipments to the country (and to Belarus) when the war started, and is operating “in strict accordance with export laws, sanctions and regulations in the US and every market in which we operate, and we hold our suppliers, customers, and distributors accountable to these same standards.”

Texas Instruments and AMD are yet to officially comment on the news, but both have said in the past that they fully comply with sanctions requirements, and that they stopped doing business in Russia with the start of the war.

Via Cybernews

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Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.

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