Government denounces Russia spreading allegations of illegal trade to divide Western partners and stop arms shipments
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, some 30 countries have become arms suppliers to Ukraine. This is a huge transit of war material that has taken on a special dimension with the permission of the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Turkey, Czech Republic, Poland or France to export more advanced and deadly arsenals than those supplied on the beginning of the crisis. Terrifyingly in the wrong hands.
Delivery is not free. It is under the control of NATO, the Pentagon, the EU and Frontex, the European Border Police. And it is finally entrusted to the good faith of Kiev, who must comply with a documentary record of all the war material entering the country and its destination. In line with the latest deliveries of systems as terrifying as the HIMARS missile launchers and the Russian resistance to grain exports, justified, among other things, by the risk that the Ukrainians take advantage of the departure of ships for arms traffic, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar announced yesterday that the Zelensky government has established a control mechanism for Western shipments to allay any suspicions.
It is true that Moscow has sharpened the charges of smuggling and reselling these weapons, which Kiev interprets as an attempt to divide the allied countries and curb exports. “Western weapons in our hands are very painful for the Russians. That is why the enemy seizes every opportunity to discredit the armed forces and undermine the trust of our partners,” said Malynar, who predicts that as the missiles become more dented in the invading troops, the spread of rumors will increase.
British and US intelligence agencies agreed yesterday that the newly arrived multiple launch pads have slowed the occupying forces’ advance into Donbas due to their greater precision and fire capacity. The Ukrainian commanders calculate that with a hundred HIMAR teams in their hands, the war would take an absolute turn.
But it is also a reality that hardly any Western ruler (or none) would put his hand into the fire where every rocket, pistol, mortar or box of ammunition has been or has been used in the five months since the war. has lasted. lasted already. war. The fear that some of the equipment will end up on the black market has been a constant since the beginning of the conflict, but is now heightened by the greater danger of the exported weapons and their catastrophic consequences if they fall into the hands of terrorists or mafia . “It is an illusion to think that the fate of weapons can be controlled in a war context,” says the Flemish Peace Institute. And even more so in the Ukrainian crisis, where the world is turned upside down like never before.
Thirty years after the Yugoslav conflict, thousands of pistols and shotguns used by fighters are still circulating clandestinely. Analysts believe the same will happen in Ukraine when the fighting ends and an undetermined amount of light weapons remains “in the hands of anyone or criminal organizations.” It is a possible horizon. Unlike Afghanistan — where there were problems in spite of everything and the United States never managed to trace the whereabouts of Stinger missiles donated to anti-Russian fighters — the Pentagon and the Allied armies lack soldiers on the ground who able to carry out a tracing shipments on Ukrainian soil.
This work is carried out by local agents, satellites and military communications tracking as far as the fog of war allows. The more secrecy the Ukrainian General Staff maintains about the distribution of weapons on the different fronts, the less effective Russia will be in its attack strategy. To this we must add the problems of administrative management to control each weapon and its technological simplification to measures that facilitate their theft. Experts believe that if Ukraine eventually becomes a “failed” state, illicit trade in the Balkans and Syria will skyrocket and some of the weapons will likely return to Europe clandestinely. Yet Washington or London take the risks if they understand that the Russian invasion poses a greater danger.
There are plenty of precedents. The end of the former USSR unleashed a profuse clandestine movement of army weapons. Without going that far back, with the start of the Donbass War in 2014, looting also took place in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Some 300,000 light weapons were lost between 2013 and 2015. Only 4,000 were recovered. After its independence, Ukraine inherited exactly 2.5 million tons of Soviet missiles, howitzers, mines and cannons. Much of this material was eventually sold by the military itself to third countries, especially in Africa.
“Arms trade is indeed something that we will monitor even more closely. There is a risk of weapons coming from Ukraine to the European Union,” Frontex director Fabrice Leggeri said in a recent interview with Efe. The agents are “very alert to new circulation routes that could be developed.” Stinger and Javelin missiles, as well as rifles and ammunition, are of course harder to track than an S-300 anti-aircraft battery, despite having serial numbers.
The same is happening, for example, with the Switchblades suicide drones, of which the US has supplied 300 units. “They don’t tell us every ammunition they fire and who and when. We may never know exactly to what extent Switchblades are being used,” said US Secretary of State John Kirby.
Source: La Verdad
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