Ukraine World Cup Lawsuit: Chipmakers, Weapons, and Russia’s Exclusion

The Ukraine-related lawsuit surrounding the 2026 World Cup is a set of five cases filed in December 2025 by Ukrainian civilians against Texas Instruments, Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, and the Mansfield-based distributor Mouser Electronics, alleging the companies allowed American microchips to reach Russian weapons that struck a children’s hospital, a playground, and other civilian sites. The cases were removed from Dallas County state court to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, where Judge Sidney Fitzwater is presiding.¹ The tournament connection is separate: Russia has been barred from FIFA competition since 2022, and Ukraine’s own qualification run ended in a March 2026 playoff loss to Sweden.

Who Is Suing and Over What Attacks

The plaintiffs are roughly 20 Ukrainian civilians, including the families of 14 people killed and six who were injured in Russian strikes. They are represented by attorneys Mikal Watts, Charla Aldous, and the law firm BakerHostetler.²

The complaints center on three attacks. On July 8, 2024, a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile hit the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine’s largest pediatric oncology facility, killing at least two people at the site and injuring more than 50 during a broader barrage that killed over 40 across the country.³ On April 4, 2025, a rocket attack on a residential neighborhood in Kryvyi Rih killed 18 people, including nine children, according to Save the Children.⁴ A third set of claims arises from strikes on a school dormitory.

Named plaintiffs include Dr. Olha Babicheva, who suffered skull and orbital bone fractures and lost feeling in her right arm during the hospital attack, and Viktoriia Didovets, a nurse whose liver damage and pelvic fracture left her with permanent difficulty walking.²

The Legal Claims

The plaintiffs assert gross negligence, wrongful death, fraudulent concealment, and conspiracy to evade export restrictions. They argue that under Texas common law the companies owed a duty of care and failed to prevent foreseeable harm to foreseeable victims by selling microchips, processors, and programmable devices through distribution channels they knew or should have known were vulnerable to diversion to Russia.²

The complaints also invoke the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, arguing that those federal statutes expressly permit state common-law claims rather than preempting them.¹

Lead attorney Mikal Watts told KERA News his aim is to “embarrass” the companies into tighter compliance, and he said he spent nine days in Ukraine collecting physical evidence, noting that recovered drone and missile parts contain what amounts to a “black box” surviving impact and bearing the manufacturers’ names.⁵

How the Chipmakers Are Fighting Back

All four defendants have moved to dismiss. They argue that federal export-control law and U.S. foreign policy preempt state tort claims, and that no private right of action exists under the relevant federal statutes. They contend the plaintiffs cannot establish causation under the pleading standard of Ashcroft v. Iqbal, because the complaints do not identify which specific semiconductors were in the weapons that injured each plaintiff. They also argue Texas law does not hold manufacturers liable for the criminal acts of third parties such as the Russian military, and that the filings came too late under the statute of limitations.¹

On the timing question, the plaintiffs respond that the companies engaged in fraudulent concealment, which they say prevented them from discovering the basis for their claims until September 2024.¹

Judge Fitzwater scheduled oral arguments on the dismissal motions for May 19, 2026. No substantive ruling had been reported as of the most recent coverage.⁶

The Evidence Behind the Case

The lawsuit builds on years of open-source and congressional findings that American semiconductors keep reaching the Russian military despite sanctions. A joint investigation by Reuters, the Royal United Services Institute, and iStories found Western components stamped with the names of Texas Instruments, Intel’s Altera subsidiary, and AMD’s Xilinx subsidiary inside recovered Russian cruise missiles and guided rockets. That investigation identified more than 15,000 shipments of Western electronic components reaching Russia in the first three months after the February 2022 invasion.⁷

Bellingcat verified through video analysis and recovered serial-numbered components that the weapon that struck Okhmatdyt was a Kh-101, contradicting Russian foreign ministry claims that it was Western-made.³ A Senate investigation later confirmed the recovered Kh-101 contained at least 16 parts from U.S. and Swiss manufacturers.⁸

A September 2024 report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, drawing on KSE Institute data, found that 72% of foreign components in analyzed Russian weapons were of U.S. origin. An increasing share of the recovered chips had been manufactured after February 2022, indicating continued successful acquisition, and Russian imports of restricted “battlefield goods” had rebounded by 2023 to nearly pre-sanction levels of $932 million per month.⁹ Ukrainian intelligence has reported that 95% of Russian missiles and drones contain foreign parts.⁸

The Subcommittee’s staff report described the companies’ export-control efforts as “abjectly lacking,” finding that none of the four had conducted sufficient audits of their distributors and that, apart from AMD, they failed to respond promptly to outside groups that traced their products to Russian weapons. The report also faulted the Bureau of Industry and Security for not mandating specific compliance program components and for imposing fines too small to prompt genuine change.⁹

What the Companies Have Said

Executives from AMD, Analog Devices, Intel, and Texas Instruments testified before the Subcommittee on September 10, 2024. Texas Instruments’ assistant general counsel Shannon Thompson told the panel the company “strongly opposes the use of our chips in Russian military equipment” and that “any shipments of TI products into Russia are illicit and unauthorized.” Intel said it operates in strict compliance with export laws and had ceased Russian operations in April 2022. AMD said it cut all sales and technical support to Russia and restricted regions after the invasion.¹⁰

Russia’s Exclusion From the 2026 World Cup

Russia has been barred from the 2026 World Cup, and from all other FIFA and UEFA competitions, since February 28, 2022, when both governing bodies suspended Russian national and club teams after the invasion of Ukraine.¹¹ The Football Union of Russia and four clubs, including Zenit St. Petersburg and CSKA Moscow, appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. CAS dismissed all six appeals in July 2022, ruling that FIFA and UEFA acted within their discretion given “unforeseen and unprecedented circumstances” and that the suspensions were necessary for the “secure and orderly conduct of football events.”¹²

The ban has kept Russia out of the 2022 World Cup, Euro 2024, and the 2026 World Cup, along with all UEFA club competitions. UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has said readmission will come “when the war stops.” Russia has continued to play 24 friendlies against nations that do not require FIFA or UEFA approval, including Belarus, Uzbekistan, Iran, and Serbia.¹¹

Ukraine’s Path to the Tournament

Ukraine’s own qualification bid ended in March 2026 with a 3-1 loss to Sweden in the UEFA playoff semifinals. The match was staged at the Ciutat de Valencia stadium in Spain because of the country’s large Ukrainian diaspora, and roughly 20,000 Ukrainian fans attended. Viktor Gyökeres scored a hat trick for Sweden; Matviy Ponomarenko scored a consolation goal for Ukraine in the 90th minute.¹³

Ukraine has been unable to host matches on home soil since November 2021 because of the war, playing “home” games in Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovakia. Ukrainian FA president Andriy Shevchenko framed the campaign as a symbol of national resilience, even as players and staff dealt with the war’s effects on their families throughout qualifying. The Sweden loss ended Ukraine’s hopes of reaching the World Cup for the first time since 2006.¹³

1
The Dallas Morning News. Texas Instruments, Tech Firms Want Ukraine War Lawsuit Dismissed
2
San Antonio Express-News. Chip Technology Lawsuit Against Intel, AMD Over Ukraine Russia War
3
Bellingcat. Russian Missile Identified in Kyiv Children’s Hospital Attack
4
Save the Children. Ukraine: April Marks Deadliest Month for Children in Nearly Three Years
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KERA News. Texas Instruments Weapons Missile Drone Attacks Russia Ukraine War Lawsuit
6
Texas Lawbook. TI, Tech Firms Want Ukrainian Lawsuit Dismissed
7
Reuters. Ukraine Crisis: Russia Missiles Chips
8
OCCRP. Western Tech Fuels Russia’s Missiles
9
U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The U.S. Technology Fueling Russia’s War in Ukraine
10
NBC News. U.S. Tech Continues to Power Russian Weapons
11
BBC Sport. Russia Ban From Football by FIFA and UEFA
12
BBC Sport. CAS Dismisses Russian Football Appeals Against FIFA and UEFA Bans
13
The Athletic (New York Times). Ukraine World Cup Sweden Qualification Spain