Russia Warns Weapons Supplied to Ukraine Resulting in Large-Scale Arms Smuggling

Aug. 12, 2022 (EIRNS)—Ivan Nechayev, Deputy Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Information and Press Department, warned in yesterday’s press conference that continuing to flood Ukraine with weapons has already resulted in a large-scale increase in arms smuggling, and their appearance on the blacknet and the darknet. He noted that, according to law enforcement agencies of EU countries, hundreds of units of automatic weapons, and tens of thousands of rounds of ammo illegally delivered from Ukraine are being seized monthly and returned to that country. But, he pointed out, the weapons available on the darknet include Javelin and other anti-tank weapons and Switchblade kamikaze drones.

Nechayev reported that in addition to armaments, the U.S. provides Ukraine with reconnaissance data. “According to the information we have, they [Ukraine] use civilian and private satellites in addition to military ones, which de facto amounts to militarizing outer space,” he concluded.

While some weapons that the U.S. and its allies send to Ukraine never make it to the front, a portion of the weapons that do make it to the front, end up on the other side. Andrey Marochko, an officer in the militia of the Lugansk People’s Republic, told TASS on Aug. 11 that significant quantities of Western-supplied weapons are captured on the battlefield, and are turned against Kiev’s forces. “The exact number of trophy weapons cannot be established, but I can say that there is a large amount of them,” said Marochko. These weapons, in particular, include Javelin and NLAW anti-armor systems, motor vehicles and tracked hardware, armor, mortars and howitzers, TASS quoted Marochko as saying.

The L.P.R. militia has a large amount of ammunition for these weapons, as the Ukrainian troops abandoned many positions and could not evacuate missile/artillery arms depots and also military hardware due to a shortage of fuel and other reasons, he said. “All these weapons were seized, adopted for service and are operational in the L.P.R. people’s militia,” Marochko specified.