One year into Russian invasion, concern grows about flow of weapons into Ukraine

According to a research briefing published this week by the UK House of Commons on military assistance to Ukraine, Kyiv has received close to €40 billion since the start of the Russian invasion.

By far the largest part was given by the US (€28.7 billion), followed by the European Union, whose members together provided €3.6 billion, and the UK with €2.6 billion. Brussels is providing “non-lethal and lethal” arms as sanctioned by its European Peace Facility (EPF), making it the first time the bloc has approved the supply of deadly weapons to a third country.

The report points out that since Ukraine is not a NATO member, it isn’t “party to NATO’s mutual defence clause under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty”, so NATO troops will “not be deployed on the ground in Ukraine”.

While a no-fly zone over that country is also excluded as it would bring Russia into direct conflict with NATO forces, in June 2022 NATO allies agreed on assistance for Ukraine that will provide “long-term, sustained support”.

Wrong hands

The massive influx of sophisticated weapons into Ukraine is crucial for its army to withstand the Russian invaders. Yet some worry about the scale of the supplies, and fear that they may fall into the wrong hands once the conflict is over.

In July 2022, Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock, quoted by The Guardian, declared: “Once the guns fall silent [in Ukraine], the illegal weapons will come. We know this from many other theatres of conflict. The criminals are even now, as we speak, focusing on them.” 

He continued: “Criminal groups try to exploit these chaotic situations and the availability of weapons, even those used by the military and including heavy weapons.”

And in December, the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, said that: "The large-scale influx of weapons into any armed conflict raises many concerns for peace and security, including risks of diversion, potential spillover and escalation."

A case in point is the fate of hundreds of Stinger missile launchers, which the US army gave to the Afghan mujahideen who were fighting the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and later to Afghanistan's army in its struggle against the Taliban: according to CNN's Asiaweek, as many as 200 of the 1,000 provided may have ended up on the black market.

Sensitive issue

The possibility of smugglers getting hold of Ukraine's new weapons is extremely sensitive. That was illustrated by Kyiv's sharp reaction to a Financial Times article earlier this month that quoted Moldova's prime minister calling for "increased EU assistance to combat arms smuggling from Ukraine".

A spokesperson for Ukraine's foreign ministry, Oleg Nikolenko, accused the FT of spreading "disinformation". Quoted by the Odessa Journal, he demanded an "editorial investigation".

But concern about Ukraine as a major source of weapons proliferation is not new.

Kyiv became a major exporter of arms after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. Writing in the Christian Science Monitor in 2002, political scientist Taras Kuzio said that a 1998 official inquiry into illicit arms trade “found that Ukraine's 1992 military stocks were worth $89 billion and that over the next six years, $32 billion worth were stolen and resold abroad. But the investigation led to no charges, and the issue was swept under the carpet.”

According to investigations by PBS Frontline, “many of the missing weapons found their way into the hands of willing buyers in hot spots around the globe, from Sierra Leone to Croatia. And as these arms proliferated, so did evidence of international criminal networks that sold arms from Ukraine in flagrant violation of international sanctions and embargoes.”

Arms trail to Africa

A 2011 research paper by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute identified Ukraine more clearly as “as the source of arms and ammunition” that found their way to armed forces and rebel groups in sub-Saharan Africa that were blacklisted by the UN during the 1990s.

The report placed Ukraine’s president, then the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych, “at the top of the decision-making structure for arms exports” and estimated that “18 percent of the volume of Ukrainian arms exports went to sub-Saharan Africa and that 11 percent of the volume of sub-Saharan African arms imports came from Ukraine”.

From 1991 onwards, a trade infrastructure leading from Ukraine to Africa took shape, as illustrated by a 2017 report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) that showed Ukraine shipped EU-made armoury via the United Arab Emirates to Uganda and Burundi. Meanwhile Amnesty International revealed illegal shipments of $46 million worth of arms shipped from Ukraine to South Sudan under a 2014 deal involving a shell company in the UK.

And more recently, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said in an official statement last year that, together with unrest in the Sahel region, the war in Ukraine serves as a "major" source of weapons and fighters "that bolster the ranks of the terrorists in the Lake Chad Region".

Critics point out that Buhari did not come with any evidence to support his allegation, but the statement reflects concern about the possibility.

• Fears of arms race in CAR as armed groups fight government
• African news explained: Arms trafficking in sub-Saharan Africa

A trade that predates the war

Organisations monitoring the arms trade do not yet have conclusive answers as to where Western arms that are shipped to Ukraine end up.

Alejandro Pozo, a researcher with the Barcelona-based Delàs Center for Peace Studies, told RFI that thorough research will take at least a year, if not longer. Official statistics are published after "a significant delay", he says.

But he also points out that the process used by EU member states to transfer artillery to Ukraine is opaque and "absolutely contrary to the spirit of the European laws on weapon exports. We are doing everything that we said very recently ago that we shouldn't do. And there is no public debate about that," he says.

In 2008, the EU Council signed a Common Position on arms exports, which includes "commitment to non-proliferation", that is meant to be integrated into the national laws of all EU member states.

But in 2020 the European Parliament criticised the fact that several arms-producing member states, including Belgium, Germany and the UK, "did not report actual exports", while France and Italy "only submitted aggregated actual exports" for that year.

Individual countries block detailed research on the grounds that the topic concerns "national security" and cannot be shared with the public, says Pozo, who has investigated Spain's arms exports.

In spite of the Common Position, a report by Investigate Europe calls the arms trade "a business without an EU policy". Between 2013 and 2020 – before the war in Ukraine started – Germany was the main EU arms exporter, for a value of €49.4 billion, followed by France with €48.7 billion, Spain (€30 billion) and Italy (€22 billion).

How the conflict affects those figures remains to be counted.

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