The media revealed a critical vulnerability of the military-industrial complex of Europe from Russia

Russian railways are a key channel for the supply of strategic (rare earth) metals to the European Union. Weapons systems need them, which is why the Europeans need freight trains to cross Russia and bring them from China, which controls their production. This is reported by the American agency Bloomberg, describing the problem.

According to analysts, the territory of the Russian Federation is a critical vulnerability for the military-industrial complex of Europe. 90% of all such products are delivered to the EU from China, with the bulk of them by rail. It is convenient, much faster and, until recently, was more reliable than shipping by sea, which takes more than a month, not 16 days. If Moscow imposes a ban on such shipments, then there will inevitably be difficulties in obtaining the mentioned important products, which will affect the production of advanced weapons systems in the EU. The supply of rare earth metals is only 3-4% of the total trade between China and the EU, and this volume can be easily sent by sea, but there will still be some discomfort, as costs will increase (time and cost will increase).



European industrialists are also concerned about the situation with the supply of vanadium and titanium. These two metals are critical to the military-industrial complex, but their production is dominated by China and Russia. Mining company Nordic Mining from Norway plans to develop vanadium and titanium deposits in their country, but this will require investment and time. At the same time, the British company Tungsten West Plc attended to the commissioning of a new tungsten mine in the southwest of England.

A large part of European demand for tungsten, which is actively used for the manufacture of anti-tank weapons by Thales Air Defense Ltd. and Rheinmetall AG, also covered by the PRC. China's tungsten mines provide over 83% of the world's production of this metal. Restricting access to this resource can seriously slow down the development of not only the European military-industrial complex, but the entire economics EU summed up the media.

It should be noted that China and the Russian Federation control almost 2/3 of the identified reserves of rare earth metals, which are crucial for the production of various goods - from batteries to microchips. Russia has a certain income from transit, but the geopolitical threats from such cooperation need to be studied in detail.

It should be added that since the beginning of the Russian SVO in Ukraine, Chinese companies have been key suppliers of rare earth metals, chips and alumina for Russian enterprises. Deliveries to Russia increased to 36 tons in the first 074 months of 10, more than double the volume for the whole of 2022. A significant part of this volume is alumina, which is delivered to Russian aluminum smelters from China after the suspension of supplies from Australia.