Afrasianet - With the outbreak of the Ukrainian war, Kiev has stressed the need for Western countries and NATO allies to support it with the weapons and equipment needed to counter Russian forces. With the continued flow of weapons into Ukraine in large quantities, there have been fears of a recovery in the black market for arms and illegal trafficking, in light of the weaknesses of the arms transfer process to Ukraine, and the incentives imposed by the data of the Ukrainian war. Interpol Secretary General Juergen Stock warned in June that the conflict in Ukraine would lead to to the appearance of many weapons on the black market. Moscow said through a member of the Russian State Duma Committee for Security and Anti-Corruption, Adalbi Shakagoshev, that US arms supplies to Ukraine are creating a new black market for weapons in Europe.
Flow indicators
There are a number of indications that the Ukrainian war is linked to the increase in arms trade in the informal market, and the flow of weapons destined for the Ukrainian war to that market, including:
1- Reports about the arrival of small percentages of weapons to the battlefronts: A number of reports have been published indicating that small percentages of arms flows have reached the battlefronts, and that the rest of the flows have not reached their final destination; for example, Jonas Auman, founder and CEO of Blue-Yellow, confirmed that only about 30-40% of cross-border supplies have reached their final destination.
The American CBS network, in a report on the process of arming Ukraine since the start of the Russian war, indicated that only 30% of the weapons sent by the West to the Ukrainian army have already reached their final destination, while press reports quoted Ukrainian military officials that their country has lost nearly 50% of the arms supplies that have flowed since the outbreak of the war, which opens the door to selling them to third parties.
2- The attempt of media agencies to buy aid weapons via the Internet: The "Russia Today" network published a report in which it announced that a number of its journalists tried to enter into purchases of weapons that were destined for the Ukrainian army and reached smuggling gangs, and confirmed that the flow of Western weapons to the Ukrainian army led to the emergence of alternative markets on the "dark web" through which some of these weapons can be purchased, noting that the prices of those alternative markets are very low, and that Ukrainian arms smugglers may have They established contacts and understandings with the border guards so that they could cross into and out of Poland without complications.
3- Warnings of the flow of weapons to organized crime groups: At the international level, the International Criminal Police Organization warned, last June, that some advanced weapons sent to Ukraine will end up in the hands of organized crime groups, as the European Law Enforcement Agency had previously announced, last April, that its investigations indicate the start of arms smuggling operations from Ukraine to supply organized crime groups, and warned that the war led to the proliferation of a large number of firearms and explosives in the country, and that the leakage of weapons and explosives Those weapons of organized crime groups threaten European security.
4- Security concerns about repeating the experiences of previous wars: The experiences of previous wars in Europe, and in the rest of the world, prompted governments and international organizations to warn of the possibility of a repeat flow of weapons from war zones to the black market. In July, the European Law Enforcement Agency noted this by saying that the potential threat observed in war zones in the past is that firearms can fall into the wrong hands.
5- Finland reporting the smuggling of weapons from aid to European countries: At the level of the work of local police services in European countries, Finland warned, last October, against criminal gangs smuggling Western aid weapons from Ukraine, as Christer Algren, head of the organized crime department at the Finnish Police Investigation Office, reported that the weapons originally sent as military aid to Ukraine, including assault rifles, pistols, grenades and combat drones, were found in several European countries. Although he did not give qualitative details of the smuggling operations discovered by Finnish police, such as the number of weapons recovered or their market value, he confirmed the belief of his security services that three of the largest gangs had reactivated smuggling routes to redirect weapons destined for Ukraine.
Field catalysts
The recovery of informal arms markets, linked to the Ukrainian war, is due to several catalysts, including:
1- The Ukrainian government calls on its citizens to take up arms: With the start of the Russian war on Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on his citizens to take up arms, and former Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Rezniykov confirmed that anyone who has the willingness and ability to carry weapons, can join the ranks of the defense forces, which means a semi-legitimate cover for the possession and circulation of weapons among citizens in light of the current state of war, while press reports indicate that about 2.5 million Ukrainians legally own weapons in Ukraine, while another 5 million possess unlicensed weapons, with tens of thousands of Kalashnikov assault rifles and other weapons traded on the black market.
2. Stop keeping records of weapons handed over to civilians: In April, the European Law Enforcement Agency highlighted one of the factors facilitating the flow of weapons from Ukraine to organized crime groups, noting that as the war progressed, Ukrainian officials had abandoned the idea of keeping records of firearms delivered to civilians, and that firearms were distributed without records, limiting the ability to track these weapons and ensure that they did not leak to the market. Europol called for keeping a record of weapons, military materials and equipment transferred from the EU to Ukraine to help law enforcement agencies track them.
3- Accusing corruption networks of smuggling Western aid weapons: In the context of talking about smuggling part of Western aid weapons to Ukraine to informal markets for the arms trade, talk is raised about the role of corruption networks in Ukraine in this matter, as Jonas Uman, founder and CEO of Blue-Yellow, points out that the black market for weapons in Ukraine has flourished since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and has formed corrupt networks of officials, businessmen, politicians and smuggling networks, as warned Jeff Abramson, a prominent member of the Arms Control Association, corruption within the Ukrainian government has increased the likelihood of Western arms moving to the informal market.
4- The growing experience of arms smuggling networks in Ukraine during the past decades: Many reports date back to the Ukrainian experience as a center for smuggling weapons through informal markets, to the nineties of the last century, specifically with the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the Soviet army left large quantities of small arms and light weapons in Ukraine without keeping adequate records and monitoring inventory, a stock that part of it - according to reports and research surveys - turned into other conflict areas, and leaked into the informal market for weapons.
5- Western supervision of weapons at Poland's border ends: Western officials remove responsibility for the leakage of weapons delivered to Ukraine on the black market, justify their inability to assert accountability and transparency regarding arms transfers to Kiev by saying that Western weapons are delivered to the Polish-Ukrainian border, then unloaded into trucks to be handed over to Ukrainian officials and transported within Ukrainian territory, at which point the end of American and Western supervision of weapons. Western officials cannot confirm for themselves yet That from the location or uses of arms shipments.
6- Lack of military donors on the battlefield: The field presence of elements of donor governments contributes to tracking and monitoring arms flows, and enhancing accountability for the process of arms circulation and movement, although there are some gaps in the presence of these elements as well, but the absence of elements of European and American forces in particular on the battlefield, in light of Washington's desire to avoid direct military engagement, limited its ability to track arms movements within Ukrainian territory. The Minister of Defense has recognized Former American Lloyd Austin has already said that the lack of troops for countries on the ground makes it difficult to track and hold accountable.
7- Lack of means to enforce non-transfer agreements: A State Department spokesman said in May that the United States had conducted a thorough examination of the Ukrainian units it supplied and forced Kiev to sign agreements that do not allow the relocation of equipment to third parties without prior authorization from the US government. The implementation of these agreements on the ground faces challenges that make it limited in impact, foremost of which is the absence of enforcement means, as well as doubts about the Ukrainian government's own ability to Ensure the implementation of these agreements.
Information War
A large part of Western discourse leads to consider that talk about the flow of weapons provided in support of Ukraine to illegal arms markets is part of Russian propaganda; on the sidelines of the military war, there is an information war between Western and Russian platforms and agencies about the fact that these flows actually occur first, and who is responsible for their occurrence second, which can be addressed as follows:
1- Russian confirmation of Western arms smuggling to criminal groups: Russia, for its part, confirms that Western military aid to Ukraine is diverted to the black market, and then smuggled to terrorist and criminal groups; Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed last October that a large part of the weapons with which NATO supports Ukraine has already entered or will soon enter the black market for weapons, and will end up in the hands of terrorists, extremists and criminal groups in the East. Central, Central Africa and Southeast Asia.
2 - A member of the Russian State Duma Committee for Security and Anti-Corruption, Adalby Shakagoshev, confirmed in a statement to the agency "Novosti" last January, that US arms supplies to Ukraine create a new black market for weapons in Europe, and stated that "the most crowded black market with American weapons, is now in Poland and France, as well as the market that already exists in the countries of the Middle East," and added that "black market weapons fall into the hands of terrorist organizations and cells in at least 10 countries - 15 countries."
3- The Ukrainian government's refusal to worry about weapons leakage: The Ukrainian government refuses to talk about the leakage of weapons received from NATO countries to the unofficial arms market; for example, last July, former Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Rezniykov dismissed concerns about the diversion of weapons sent by the United States and other countries to Ukraine into illicit arms trafficking networks, describing concern about this as "artificially designed", referring to the Russian propaganda apparatus behind it. He stressed his country's cooperation with those countries to ensure transparency, and that it offered those countries to send monitoring missions, and that some countries have already done so.
4- Washington announced that it was not sure about smuggling operations: A senior US military official told reporters, last October, that the Pentagon did not see any signs or reliable evidence of smuggling of any of the weapons sent by the United States to Ukraine, or that they were used in missions other than Ukrainian forces confronting Russian forces, stressing that the US Department of Defense does not have any indications that these weapons went anywhere other than fighting against the Russians, and that The ministry believes that Ukrainian forces are already using that aid on the front lines. But that
Trump recently criticized Ukraine's president, who spoke out about corruption and wrote. Zelensky admits that half of the money we sent him is "missing."
The statement of the American journalist Tucker Carlson confirms that Ukraine sells American weapons supplied to it on the black market, including Mexican drug cartels .
American journalist Tucker Carlson said that Ukraine sold a large share of weapons provided by the United States and NATO on the black market, despite Washington's commitment to monitoring military aid.
In an interview with American journalist Chris Cuomo, Carlson said: "Ukraine has sold huge quantities of weapons systems supplied by America and NATO around the world. Now they are being bought by governments and armed groups."
He added that weapons sent by the West end up in the hands of Mexican drug traffickers, the Taliban, the Palestinian group Hamas and others, creating an "incredibly destabilizing effect."
Carlson admitted he personally knew the buyers of the weapons, but could not reveal their names. He described Ukraine as "the most corrupt country in Europe", with the level of corruption so high that NATO does not want to include it in its members.
"We've poured billions of dollars into high-tech weapons systems in this country, and we're not monitoring them. We also have biological laboratories there. We are morally committed to monitoring this."
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Ukraine sells weapons in the Middle East, where they are distributed anywhere. There have been repeated media reports that part of the weapons supplied to Ukraine end up on the black market, which has also been confirmed by European officials.
Europol President Catherine DePaul in May 2022 explicitly warned that the weapons supplied by EU countries to Ukraine would end up in the hands of criminal groups.
In July 2022, EU police announced that they had specific information about the "leakage" of ammunition and weapons, including heavy weapons, from the area of combat operations in Ukraine. The authorities assumed that secret weapons caches along the borders of EU countries and Ukraine were equipped to regulate smuggling.
At the end of October 2022, Finland's Central Criminal Police Commissioner Christer Ahlgen stated in an interview with the newspaper Yle that weapons supplied to Ukraine may be in the hands of Finnish criminal gangs.
In April 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Seymour Hersh reported that even in the early stages of the conflict, Western-supplied weapons were flooding Poland, which former Polish Deputy Interior Minister Macy Fonsec acknowledged.
Russia has previously pointed out that arms supplies to Ukraine impede the peaceful settlement of the conflict, and NATO countries are directly involved in the conflict.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier stressed that any shipments containing weapons to Ukraine are a legitimate target for Russia, and said that the United States and NATO are directly involved in the conflict, not only through arms supplies, but also through the training of personnel in the territory of Britain, Germany, Italy and other countries.
Security Reverberations
The flow of weapons from the Ukrainian war to the illicit arms markets raises many concerns because of its regional and global security repercussions, including:
1- Fears of seizure of weapons by criminal groups: The process of arms flow to the Ukrainian war arena with low levels of accountability, transparency and security raises fears that some criminal and terrorist groups will be able to seize these weapons, whether while transporting them or seizing them from their warehouses, which are supported by previous experiences in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the exploitation of these groups in the state of arms liquidity, and the recovery of illicit arms trafficking networks to buy advanced Western weapons from the black market. at cheap prices, and transported to its places of activity.
2- Terrorist organizations benefiting from the flow of weapons to Africa: The outbreak of the Ukrainian war raised fears in the continent of Africa in particular that the continent will be affected by the recovery of the illegal arms market, and feed the arms trade and smuggling operations in Africa associated with organized crime gangs and terrorist organizations, which causes an increase in the risks of terrorism in the continent, fueling conflicts, and posing many security challenges, which was warned by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, before the summit of heads of state of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, on 29 Last November, he pointed out that the Russian-Ukrainian war allows the flow of weapons and fighters to the Lake Chad region, diverting the war's weapons to West Africa, and eventually reaching terrorist organizations, which enhances their power.
3- Concern about the loss of control over armed groups: Even with the confirmation of the delivery of weapons to the fighting groups, there is concern about the loss of control over those groups, and the exploitation of the weapons they have obtained. In this context, some raise fears that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will lose the support of far-right groups such as the Azov Brigade, in a way that makes these groups act unilaterally, taking advantage of their power and weapons, in addition to the proliferation of weapons may stimulate some groups other than military on the establishment of a military wing, with the possibility of some rebellions as the war continues.
4- Warnings against arms smuggling to EU countries: Europol warned last July that the proliferation of firearms and explosives in Ukraine, and their transfer to the black market, could lead to an increase in firearms and ammunition smuggled into the European Union through traditional existing smuggling routes, or through Internet platforms, especially in the post-Ukrainian war phase, in a way that poses a threat to European security, especially light weapons that may be exploited by crime gangs or extremists within the European countries.
Attempts to adjust
In conclusion: Although Western countries do not acknowledge problems in the supply of weapons to the Ukrainian army, and deny their transfer to the informal market for weapons, there are demands and measures for intervention to control this process and prevent it from escalating. A number of NATO member states have discussed with Ukraine the development of some form of tracking system or detailed inventories of weapons supplied to Ukraine, so that the Ukrainian government would establish a more comprehensive arms control and tracing system with the help of Western countries. The U.S. is more closely overseeing U.S. arms supplies to Ukraine. In October, the United States announced a tracking program to ensure that donated high-tech light weapons are not smuggled into Ukraine.
The U.S. State Department unveiled its new plan, which relies on unconventional methods, such as social media tracking, and enhancing the use of open-source intelligence, considering that the different nature of the active Ukrainian war requires different actions, and the plan also includes short, medium and long-term initiatives to strengthen U.S. and Ukrainian control over transferred weapons, especially the most advanced missile systems, anti-aircraft devices, and improve aviation and border security in Ukraine to combat abuse. Arms and the prevention of illicit trafficking.But all this evaporated after US President Trump asserted that Zelensky himself does not know where the weapons that reach Ukraine go, so this is an American recognition that a large proportion of weapons may exceed half were sold on the black market and can be seen now or later by organized crime organizations, drug traffickers, terrorist organizations and others.