A law firm in the US state of Texas has filed a lawsuit against Texas Instruments, AMD, and Intel, accusing these companies of illegally exporting electronic components—parts that, according to the plaintiffs, were used in drones and missiles deployed by Russia and Iran against Ukrainian civilians.
The news website Wattstrialfirm wrote in a report that according to the text of the complaint filed in a Texas state court, the American companies Texas Instruments, AMD, and Intel are accused of failing to prevent their chips and microprocessors from being transferred to Russian and Iranian weapons systems.
According to the outlet, the plaintiffs—who are victims of drone and missile attacks—said they have lost family members or suffered severe physical and psychological injuries.
The lawsuit states that these components, including those used in Shahed drones, were employed in areas such as flight control systems, navigation, and counter-jamming, and played an effective role in attacks on residential areas and Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
The local newspaper Glos Wielkopolski reported on September 13 that the Polish company “WSK Poznan” sold components to Iran that were used in the production of Shahed-136 suicide drones—drones that were recently used in Russian attacks against Poland.
The case was first exposed by an investigative journalist from Radio “ZET.” He reported that fuel pumps exported directly from the Polish factory ultimately ended up in the production line of Iranian drones.
Efforts to prevent the transfer of sensitive technologies
The plaintiffs’ lawyers said that despite repeated warnings from government bodies, media reports, and independent investigations, these companies continued selling their products through channels that posed the risk of transfer to Russia, Iran, and China.
According to the report, the filed lawsuit has four main pillars: negligence, violation of US export control laws, gross negligence, and wrongful death.
The complaint emphasizes that US export control laws and executive orders issued by former and current presidents were enacted precisely to prevent sensitive technologies from reaching hostile actors, and that violations of these laws have directly led to the killing of civilians.
The US Department of Justice announced on September 12 that it had filed a complaint to seize approximately 584,000 dollars in Tether cryptocurrency linked to Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi, a 39-year-old Iranian national and CEO of the company “Sanat Danesh Rahpouyan Aflak,” due to his role in connection with the IRGC’s drone program.
US prosecutors in Massachusetts stated that the Iranian company produced “Sepehr” navigation systems for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and that this technology was used in drones and guided missiles.
Seventy percent of Russian drone components are American-made
The lawsuit also refers to reports published by institutions such as the United States Institute of Peace, the PBS network, the Kyiv School of Economics, and the Institute for Science and International Security, showing that a large portion of the components found in Russian drones and missiles were manufactured by American companies.
One of these reports states that about 70% of the components identified in Russian drones were supplied by American companies.
The plaintiffs said that despite being aware of the risk of misuse of their products, these companies failed to adopt effective measures to control their supply chains and continued cooperating with high-risk distributors.
They are seeking compensation as well as punitive rulings, which they say are intended to prevent the recurrence of such cases in the future.
Following Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, “Shahed” suicide drones manufactured by Iran’s regime have played a prominent role in the war.
Russian forces have deployed thousands of these drones—also known by local names such as “Geran-2”—to carry out repeated attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, urban areas, and military targets, aiming to strain the country’s air defense systems and intensify the burden of war, a move that has drawn criticism from Kyiv and the West and led to sanctions and calls for international investigations.
