Russia imports over $1B in strategic minerals for military use, with China as top supplier

Russia spent over $1.1 billion importing strategic minerals for its military-industrial complex in a single year, according to a report by the Economic Security Council of Ukraine (ESCU). The findings cover April 2024 through March 2025 and paint a picture of a country that, despite sitting on vast natural resources, can’t process them fast enough to keep its weapons production lines running. China is doing most of the heavy lifting. Beijing supplied the lion’s share of critical materials, including alumina, tungsten, tantalum, and niobium, all essential ingredients for producing missiles and military aircraft. The report positions these imports as a structural vulnerability that Western sanctions have so far failed to fully exploit. The numbers behind Russia’s mineral dependency The single largest line item is alumina, the refined form of bauxite used to produce aluminum. Russia imported 1.6 million tonnes of alumina from China alone, worth roughly $1 billion. That figure represented 31.5% of Russia’s total mineral import value during the analyzed period. Ireland, perhaps surprisingly, ranked as another major alumina supplier. Irish exports to Russia totaled 960,350 tonnes valued ...