With No Officers in Russia, BIS Turns to Other ‘Tools’ to Assess Licenses, Official Says

The Bureau of Industry and Security doesn’t have export control officers in Russia but has other means to monitor violations and to assess license applications, said Matthew Axelrod, the agency’s top export enforcement official. Although BIS can’t conduct end-use checks in the country, it can still turn to “open source reporting” and other intelligence when considering a license, Axelrod said. “We have a lot of different tools at our disposal to help inform the licensing process,” he said during a June 29 news conference.

Axelrod said BIS has two export control officers in Frankfurt, Germany -- one who covers Western Europe, and another who covers Eastern Europe, including Russia. But those two officials aren't BIS’s only resources to monitor the region, said Thea Kendler, the agency’s assistant secretary for export enforcement. “We have an enormous network of friends who we cooperate with on all sorts of BIS work,” she said. “The more we are in sync with our allies, the more access we have to information and understanding of the kinds of activities you're alluding to.”

BIS Undersecretary Alan Estevez said BIS is partly able to operate with no agents in Russia because of the strict licensing requirements in place. “For the most part, we don't have to have end-use checks in Russia anymore because we don't export anything to Russia anymore,” he said.