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The story
At a U.S. congressional subcommittee hearing, the Belgian investigative organization CAR presented a report denying claims that Russia has been stripping semiconductors from washing machines and dishwashers for military use. On 5ch’s console gaming board, this fueled a wave of comments arguing that the theory of PS5s being taken apart for drone parts is likewise false, since sourcing finished components through third countries is more efficient than tearing apart appliances. At the same time, many users pushed back, citing NHK and TBS reports that exports of game consoles and controllers to Russia rose sevenfold since 2022 on suspicion of military diversion — pointing out that the report only refutes “appliance teardown,” not the diversion of finished exported products.
At a U.S. subcommittee hearing, Belgium’s investigative organization CAR submitted a report denying claims that “Russia is ripping semiconductor components out of consumer washing machines and dishwashers to repurpose them for military use.”
Its reasoning: it’s easier to obtain the parts directly than to buy washing machines and dishwashers and extract the components from them.
This completely debunks the idea that PS5s are being taken apart for parts. Everyone who’s been spreading that rumor should take a good look at themselves.
Source: govinfo.gov / Original article here
What people said
That's exactly it — the report says they're getting those restricted parts through third-country channels instead.
Drones don't need that high a performance CPU to begin with — even the original Switch would be overkill.
They're soldered onto the motherboard, so handling them is nowhere near as easy as with appliances.
Sounds like you don't know much about Chinese soldering skills.
Don't you get it? People are saying the "Hall-of-Shame Trash-tation" (derisive nickname for the PS5) only has chip performance on par with the dirt-cheap semiconductors used in appliance control boards.
The whole bizarre argument started as "washing machines and dishwashers are being diverted, so PS5s must be too!" If the washing machine/dishwasher diversion gets debunked, obviously the PS5 diversion theory gets debunked right along with it, lol.
That's totally off, lol.
The PS5 itself is under an embargo too, but it still gets in via third countries (mainly China).
The report's point is that if an embargoed PS5 can get in that way, then drone parts that could be used for military purposes can come in the exact same way through third countries — and that's cheaper.
You clearly haven't read a word of it, lol.
No it didn't.
NHK only said:
>Exports of game consoles and controllers from China to Russia up sevenfold since 2022
"Unlikely to be for gaming purposes — suspected military diversion"
There was no report saying the console itself was diverted.
What Russia is actually procuring are finished, assembled drones.
The PS5's SoC is hopelessly unsuited for drones anyway, and if China's the one making them, they're not short on drone parts to begin with.
Officially China says it won't hand high-performance drones to Russia, but Ukraine keeps calling out how Russia gets around that every way imaginable and uses Chinese-made drones as weapons anyway.
So yeah, the obvious question is: why on earth would China bother taking apart PS5s for this?
"Unlikely to be for gaming purposes — suspected military diversion"
It clearly says "game consoles" right there.
There's a comma separating them — are you seriously reading that as only "the controller part of a game console"?
Yeah, that's right? Go watch the news once in a while.
https://newsdig.tbs.co.jp/articles/-/1877021
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOGR243M30U5A220C2000000/
Controllers have been repurposed for other things for ages, though…
You're saying it's NHK but your source is TBS, lmao.
The source you posted in Re: #33 literally says "game consoles," then after a comma, "controllers" — and you seriously read that as only meaning the controller part of a game console?
That's exactly what I'm saying.
The UK's export restrictions cover not just controllers but game consoles themselves too, because consoles and controllers fall under the same product category.
NHK reported this as "game consoles, controllers" based on that, but what's actually being diverted is just the controllers, not the console itself.
NHK never reported that the console itself was being diverted.
Seriously, why can't people get this?
It's your understanding that's off — that's exactly why no one with sense can make sense of your posts.
"Russia ripping semiconductors out of appliances" was only true early on —
now the story is that they're getting a stable supply from somewhere.
Well, that stable source is probably China.
Recently, an unexploded Geran-5 (a Shahed-type drone) that fell in Ukraine was found full of American- and Japanese-made parts, which suggests they're routing supply through somewhere indirectly.
To lay out the timeline: tanks destroyed in Ukraine were examined and found to contain a lot of repurposed consumer-good parts. That led to reports speculating Russia was tearing apart washing machines and dishwashers domestically to get them.
The investigation responding to that says: no, they're sourcing parts that can be repurposed from consumer goods through third countries instead — buying finished appliances one by one would be absurdly cost-inefficient. That's what this report is about.
So the "ripping semiconductors out of appliances" thing never actually happened from the start.
I don't know if it's happening in Russia, but China itself definitely does pull components out of devices.
There used to be plenty of cases of pulled transistors getting relabeled with a bigger capacity rating and then catching fire.
So that means resold Trash-tations (PS5s) get taken apart in a third country, and those parts flow into Russia, right?
There's no contradiction there at all.
But the report literally says "if you're buying through a third country, there's no need to take it apart, and taking it apart only adds more cost," lmao.
Right, and shipping a bulky, undisassembled Trash-tation whole costs money too, same as taking it apart does — so they offload that work onto the third country and just source the parts, right?
Wait, did you actually think the Trash-tation gets shipped all the way to Russia fully intact?
The report in Re: #1 doesn't say anything like that??????????
Did you even read the report??????????
You need to quote the part first — where exactly?
>The whole "they're so desperate they're ripping semiconductors out of consumer washing machines, so they must be tearing apart PS5s too!" theory has fundamentally collapsed, that's where.
That's the whole point — they're NOT doing the horribly inefficient thing, they're using a smarter workaround instead, ugh.
I'll bite — they can't import in bulk through official big channels, so they're scraping parts together bit by bit through whatever workaround they can find.
So what if drones are being built using PS5 parts sourced through that smart workaround?
Unless that gets ruled out too, this whole thing is pointless — where in Re: #1 does it rule that out?
Background and Key Points of This Debate
This report was submitted to a U.S. Senate subcommittee by the Belgian investigative organization CAR, examining claims that consumer-grade parts had been found in destroyed Russian military equipment in Ukraine. It denies the specific claim that semiconductors are being pulled from washing machines and dishwashers, arguing that sourcing needed parts or finished products through third countries is more cost-effective and efficient than disassembling appliances. Where opinion split on the thread was over the fact that the report only refutes “appliance teardown” — a different claim from the NHK and TBS reports that exports of game consoles and controllers to Russia rose sevenfold since 2022 on suspicion of military diversion, which concern finished products being exported and repurposed. In other words, “PS5s are being taken apart for drone parts” and “exported game consoles themselves may be used for military purposes” are two separate claims, and the report only addresses the former. Concluding that “the PS5-to-drone theory has been completely debunked” without making that distinction is premature.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “Idiot: ‘PS5s are getting taken apart in Russia and turned into drones lol’ Research org: ‘No way’ Idiot: ‘Huh?’.”
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