u-blox strongly condemns the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, u-blox stopped all sales to Russia, Belarus and the territories occupied by the Russian army in Ukraine, irrespective of the intended use. Recently, u-blox has also decided not to sell to members of the Eurasian Economic Union (a free trade zone with Russia).
Since 2002, u-blox has had in place a strict company policy that its products must not be used in weapons or weapon systems – including systems for target identification. Since 2022, u-blox has expanded its policy to exclude the use of its products in military drones, military UAVs and military robots, irrespective of their use. The company’s global sales teams are regularly trained on u-blox's policy and distributors are contractually obliged to adhere to these restrictions. All u-blox products are designed for commercial use only.
u-blox's policy regarding the use of its products is public and available on its website at https://www.u-blox.com/en/code-of-conduct. The use of u-blox products in weapons and weapon systems and the sale to embargoed countries is a clear breach of u-blox’s Conditions of Sales applicable to customers and distributors alike. We investigate any infringement of this policy very thoroughly and will take legal action in case of infringement.
As to how u-blox components have been found in drones used by Russian forces, we can provide the following assumptions, respectively explanations: either these components were purchased before sanctions were in place; or excess inventory was sold on by customers to brokers in countries not applying sanctions against Russia and then shipped into Russia; or smuggled into Russia; or they have been de-mounted from an end product and re-integrated into Russian drones. There are several billions of GNSS receivers of various chip vendors in the field. They are for example in e-scooters, in e-bikes, in cars, in construction machines and, unfortunately, they can be taken out of those systems and reintegrated in other systems.
Initial policy in 2002, last update 2023