15 Ukrainians are suing US tech factories over chips in Russia's deadly weapons
Six-year-old Sonya, who lives with her mother in a residential building near the strike on Okhmatdyt hospital, was injured despite taking shelter in her bathroom. (Anya Korzun)
It was a regular workday when the air raid alarm sounded at Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital at 11 a.m. on a Monday in Kyiv. Dr. Olga Babicheva and her colleagues moved their young patients to a room with no windows to better protect them. Six children were still undergoing procedures, so they rushed back to finish them.
"Then the explosion happened. I woke up the next day in the hospital. I spent three months recovering. I’m back at work, but the consequences stay with me," she recalled.
That strike on July 8, 2024 — one of the deadliest attacks on Kyiv — is now part of a civil lawsuit filed in the United States.
The lawsuit seeks to hold three major U.S. chipmakers accountable for helping enable Russia’s war against Ukrainian civilians by failing to control where their products end up.
Despite years of sanctions and export controls, U.S.-made electronic components — which have unique markings and cannot be copied — continue to appear in Russian cruise missiles and drones. Investigations have repeatedly found these chips inside weapons used in some of the war’s most devastating attacks.
With that argument, a group of Ukrainian civilians has now brought their case to a U.S. court. The lawsuit, filed on their behalf by U.S. attorney Mikal C. Watts, targets Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), and Texas Instruments Inc.
It accuses the companies of negligence in allowing their technology to power weapons like the Kh-101 cruise missile, the Iskander-M ballistic missile, and the Iranian-made Shahed drones — all of which have been used to strike civilian areas in Ukraine throughout the full-scale war.
"These chips are like the steering wheels of cars. Without them, missiles and drones make no sense," Watts said during a press conference in Kyiv on December 10.
In a comment to Bloomberg, Intel Corps said it "does not conduct business in Russia," adding it operates "in strict accordance with export laws, sanctions and regulations in the U.S. and every market in which we operate, and we hold our suppliers, customers, and distributors accountable to these same standards." Texas Instruments and AMD did not respond to Bloomberg.
The Kyiv Independent has contacted all three comapnies for comment.
How do the chips reach Russia?
The lawsuit argues that this happens in part because tech companies do not properly enforce export controls or track the final destination of their products. Many components, it claims, were bought online in bulk and then sent through third countries such as Iran, China, and Bulgaria, allowing Russia to bypass U.S. sanctions.
"There are export lists. We know exactly what requires a license and what doesn’t. And companies know who they’re selling to. But instead, they rely on a checkbox that says, ‘I’m not shipping to Putin.’ That’s it. No enforcement. No accountability," Watts said.
Watts accused the companies of choosing profit over responsibility.
"Don’t say you can’t trace where your products go. You can — you just don’t want to. This is a mockery of U.S. sanctions law," he said.
5 deadly cases
The legal team documented five specific attacks for the initial filing, all of them targeting civilian infrastructure with no military presence. Together, they illustrate a pattern the lawyers argue shows Russia’s intent to terrorize civilians rather than strike military targets.
The earliest case dates back to March 22, 2023, when a Shahed drone struck a dormitory in the town of Rzhyshchiv, killing nine civilians. A month later, on April 28, 2023, an airstrike destroyed a nine-story apartment building in Uman, killing 23 people.
Later that year, on June 13, 2023, Russia launched another deadly attack on Kryvyi Rih killed at least 12 civilians and wounded dozens more.
In 2024, Russia carried out one of the most shocking attacks of the war — the strike on Okhmatdyt, Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital, where Babicheva and dozens of young patients were caught in the blast. The attack killed 33 people and injured 121 others across the capital that day.
In 2025, the terror continued. On April 4, an Iskander-M missile struck a children’s playground in Kryvyi Rih, killing 20 people, including 9 children.
Who is behind the lawsuit?
The case is being led by Mikal C. Watts, a U.S. attorney with experience in large-scale class action lawsuits, alongside Ukrainian legal and human rights organizations.
Watts is currently representing 15 Ukrainian families in the initial filing. The long-term goal is to expand the case further as more evidence is collected.
Dmytro Afanasyev, a legal adviser involved in documenting the cases, explained that the lawsuit is a civil action, meaning that plaintiffs will not pay legal costs. If the case is unsuccessful, they lose nothing. But if it wins, damages will be awarded based on the level of harm suffered.
"It’s not just about money. This is about deterrence. If these companies know they will face legal and reputational consequences, they might finally shut down these supply chains," Afanasyev said.
What the lawsuit hopes to achieve
Beyond compensation for victims and their families, the lawyers want to break the supply chain that continues to feed U.S.-made components into Russian missiles and drones.
The legal strategy is to exert pressure not just on manufacturers, but also on distributors and intermediaries who enable the flow of banned technologies through indirect channels.
"We want to make this process so expensive and painful that companies are forced to act. That is our contribution to stopping the war against civilians," Watts said.
