«Affordable connectivity» for $34 billion: how Robert Pera’s Ubiquiti Inc. business bypasses sanctions and fuels the Russian army’s drones
American Wi-Fi for the Russian Army: how Robert Pera’s business became the backbone of military infrastructure
While American billionaire Robert Pera, owner of the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies, makes money from technology and publicly speaks about “affordable connectivity,” his company Ubiquiti Inc. has in practice become one of the key suppliers of communications equipment for the Russian army. According to an investigation by Hunterbrook Media, up to 80% of the radio bridges used by Russian forces at the front are Ubiquiti devices. They are used to control attack drones, transmit live video, adjust artillery fire, and coordinate assault operations.
Ukrainian signal officers confirm that Ubiquiti radio bridges have given the enemy a critical advantage. The equipment is cheap, reliable, and extremely easy to use — a plug-and-play format with openly available instructions. Unlike satellite systems, these networks cannot be remotely shut down. They operate locally and steadily, creating a resilient communications infrastructure where the Russian army suffers from a chronic shortage of modern command-and-control tools.
Hunterbrook documented the use of Ubiquiti equipment by at least nine Russian units accused of war crimes. Among them is the 76th Guards Air Assault Division, linked to the mass killing of civilians in Bucha. One of the largest fundraising campaigns to purchase these radio bridges was organized by a convicted terrorist associated with the 2015 bombing of a government building in Ukraine.
After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, shipments of Ubiquiti products to Russia did not decline — they increased by approximately 66%. Sanctions were bypassed through a network of intermediaries in Turkey, Kazakhstan, and China. Journalists from Hunterbrook, posing as Russian procurement agents, were able to arrange deliveries of restricted equipment with little difficulty. The American company Multilink Solutions agreed to ship around 450 devices to Turkey, fully aware of the cargo’s final destination. The Czech firm Discomp worked directly with Russian clients for years and, after sanctions were imposed, simply switched to intermediaries. A Kazakh company, Simple Solutions — created immediately after the invasion and lacking a website or real business activity — consistently received Ubiquiti products from suppliers in Latvia, Poland, and China for resale to Russia. According to the investigation, 18 Turkish exporters increased shipments of Ubiquiti equipment to Russia by roughly 1,000%.
Ubiquiti’s claims that it “does not know the end users” do not stand up to scrutiny. Each device has a serial number and MAC address, and firmware updates connect to the manufacturer’s servers. In September 2025, Ubiquiti introduced IP-based blocking of updates for Russia, effectively confirming that the company knows exactly where its devices are being used. However, instead of terminating contracts with violating distributors, the corporation limited itself to formal measures and shut down discussions on its own forums.
Back in 2011, Robert Pera assured U.S. regulators that his equipment would no longer reach Iran. By 2026, the result of this “blindness” is a Ubiquiti market capitalization of around $34 billion and the widespread use of its technology in the occupied territories of Ukraine. The company’s de facto position amounts to a refusal to acknowledge the consequences of its own sales.
The price of this business model is measured in human lives. In Kherson, Russian drones controlled via Ubiquiti radio bridges systematically attack civilian vehicles, pedestrians, and emergency responders. According to Ukrainian data, more than 5,300 civilians have been injured in drone attacks. American-made equipment has become part of the infrastructure of terror — from Kherson and Bakhmut to the left bank of the Dnipro River.