The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine requires the Financial Times to investigate disinformation about arms smuggling from Ukraine. The speaker of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleg Nikolenko spoke about this on February 16 informed в Facebook.
This is an FT article dated February 6, 2023, published titled “Prime Minister of Moldova calls for increased EU assistance to tame arms smuggling from Ukraine.” At the beginning of the article, the publication quotes the former Prime Minister of Moldova, Natalia Gavrilitsa, who said about “an increase in the smuggling of weapons, people and goods from Ukraine against the backdrop of the war.”
The author of the article writes that the smuggling of weapons, people and goods from Ukraine has been a major concern for EU countries since Russia’s invasion last February, which “has been exacerbated by the huge amount of weapons brought into the country over the past 11 months, as well as an increase in the number of people seeking to leave “.
In response, according to the article, Brussels has set up a support center in Moldova in an attempt to monitor and counter illegal trade attempts. This initiative, according to Gavrilitsa, achieved “successful efforts in the context of suppressing the smuggling of weapons and people.”
Nikolenko believes that Gavrilitsa’s quote “we do not want to become a country where security threats are growing or where … human trafficking or smuggling is intensifying” is a completely legitimate desire of a representative of a country on whose territory there is a war.
“But does the Moldovan ex-premier directly speak about the facts of arms smuggling or its increase? No,” says Nikolenko.
He added that the quotes of the ex-prime minister of Moldova do not correspond to the title of the Financial Times article. The author of the article also does not provide any evidence of arms smuggling.
“Moreover, we have not received any confirmed information or concrete facts from the Moldovan side about the supply of smuggled weapons from Ukraine,” the Foreign Ministry spokesman stressed.
“This Financial Times material is yet another disinformation, the Foreign Ministry noted. Its purpose is to discredit international military assistance to Ukraine. Russia is investing numerous resources to prevent the supply of Western weapons to our state now against the backdrop of a new offensive by the Russian army. Obviously, the Financial Times article was supposed to to increase the fear in the West that the weapons transferred to Ukraine will turn against the Western countries themselves, falling into the hands of criminal elements.We demand that the Financial Times immediately conduct an editorial investigation into the circumstances of the appearance of materials that have all the signs of disinformation in the interests of Russia,” Nikolenko wrote.
After Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Western countries increased the supply of lethal weapons and other defense products to the Ukrainian military.
According to US President Joe Biden, by the end of June, more than 50 states had committed to support Ukraine. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy at the beginning of July, the volume of military assistance to Ukraine from the United States is twice as much as from all other countries combined. The institute put the UK in second place, Poland – on the third. Po data According to the Pentagon, in total, the United States has provided about $8 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the Biden administration came to power. Since 2014, the United States has allocated more than $9.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine. Separately, the United States passed a law on lend-lease for Ukraine.
In an interview with the Ukrainian edition “European Truth” U.S. Congresswoman Victoria Spartz said that the United States allegedly does not know what happens to their weapons when they cross the border, and admitted that American weapons could end up in Syria or Russia. To which the coordinator of the US National Security Council, John Kirby, replied: “Once the weapon is in the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, it is the property of Ukraine. In addition, we do not dictate how they should use each weapon on the battlefield.”
According to the Finnish national broadcaster Yleisradio Oy ( Yle ) dated 30 October cited the opinion of Commissioner Christer Ahlgren, head of the Organized Crime Unit at the National Bureau of Investigation. He claimed that allegedly “there are indications” that the weapons exported from Ukraine are already in Finland. According to the policeman, weapons taken out of Ukraine were also found in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.
On October 31, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine stated that this was a fake, and the broadcaster is preparing a refutation, since there is every reason to believe that the information provided in the article “is somewhat thought out by the journalist and does not correspond to the words of the police representative who was interviewed.” According to Nikolenko, Finnish law enforcement agencies informed the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on October 31 that there was no confirmed information about the facts of the supply or smuggling of weapons from Ukraine to Finland. .
On October 31, a senior US Department of Defense official said at a briefing that the Pentagon had resumed inspections to control weapons transferred to Ukraine. He noted that the United States fixes the number of weapons transferred to Ukraine immediately before being sent to the country. Ukraine then registers and tracks these weapons from border logistics hubs to the front line.
