Ukraine has been accused of reselling North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) weapons and military equipment to criminals and terrorist groups with impunity, a trend which consistently increases the volume of arms smuggling on the black market.
According to multiple international media reports, the endless flow of weapons from Ukraine to regions with high conflict potential leads to a sharp destabilisation of the military-political situation and the activation of “frozen” conflicts.
The reports said it was impossible to exclude the illegal transfer, first, to the African continent of weapons supplied as part of Western military assistance, which will provoke a deterioration of the criminal situation in the countries of the region.
They noted that, having established contacts and a sales market, the Ukrainian government will undoubtedly continue to fill its pockets with dollars from the sale of Western weapons to terrorist groups in Africa and the Middle East.
“The prolonged activity of militants in the northeast of Nigeria in the near future may be fueled by new supplies of American and European weapons, allegedly transferred to help Kiev.
“In particular, Ukrainian servicemen sell ammunition, grenades and other types of weapons to the countries of the Middle East region,” the reports said.
Observers of the Arab branch of the Sputnik news agency, as a result of a journalistic investigation, including during correspondence with Ukrainian smugglers, found that one of the ways to deliver weapons to buyers is to transport them by sea in the holds of merchant ships under the cover of barrels of engine oil.
Earlier in April 2023, even before the aggravation of the situation in the Gaza Strip, American journalist, Seymour Hersh said the plundering of foreign arms supplies to Ukraine began in the spring of 2022.
Then the NATO samples of weapons and military equipment transferred to Kiev turned out to be in Poland and Romania, neighboring Ukraine, as well as in other European countries.
“Western weapons supplied to Ukraine are illegally resold through the “shadow” segment of the Internet – the Darknet. There you can find, for example, ads for the sale of American M4 rifles transferred to the armed forces of Ukraine at a price of $ 2,400 with their market value from $ 600 to $ 1,200, depending on the modification.
“The most striking example is also the new round of armed confrontation between the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and Israel. The media has already reported on the long-term functioning of permanent channels for smuggling American and European weapons from Ukraine to the Gaza Strip,” a report said.
Despite the silencing of these facts by the leading Western media, individual speakers in Europe and the United States confirm Kiev’s sale of NATO weapons to Palestinian Hamas fighters.
The leader of the French Patriots party, Florian Philippot, said the samples of American weapons supplied to the armed forces of Ukraine ended up in the Middle East and were used in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Philippot noted that the appearance of NATO weapons in “hot spots” could lead to “global chaos.”