Arms smuggling and other fakes: russia losing on the front and looking for ways to lie about Ukraine
Since russia annexed Crimea and started the war in Donbas in 2014, Ukraine has requested and eventually received weapons from its Western partners and began reorienting to NATO standards and retraining. At the same time, we need to admit that russian propaganda was also carefully trained in brainwashing its citizens, whom it sent into a senseless full-scale war where russia will see nothing but defeat.
russian propaganda, led by the best "historians," "analysts," and outright liars from the Kremlin, never tire of surprising with various accusations. This time they twisted several Western leaders' and institutions' statements and added their creative lies.
Dmitry Medvedev, as they say in Ukraine, the former last hope of russian liberals, didn't hesitate to come up with fooling ideas. Thus, he suggested, "together with the responsible countries," thinking about creating an international body to seize weapons imported into Ukraine.
Fake about arms smuggling: why now?
It is not surprising why it happened now; Rubryka already wrote about the consequences of congressional representative Victoria Spartz's statements regarding Ukraine's alleged improper use of foreign aid. In addition, the campaign against the misuse of weapons and support, in general, was picked up by the authoritative publication Financial Times, which published an article claiming that Ukraine allegedly engages in arms smuggling. The fundamental problem with this article is that anonymous sources voice the West's supposed concerns about this issue. Therefore, this article lacks trust, especially considering that the editors have changed its name, which is now significantly different from the previous one.
We should also not underestimate the ability of russian propagandists to organize provocative campaigns at the right time. In russia's war against Ukraine, the moment has come when Ukraine needs more weapons to continue its counteroffensive in the south to de-occupy the east.
There were even attempts to blame Ukraine's Territorial Defense for trading in Javelin ATGM and other weapons. Considering the speed of fundraising by Ukrainian volunteers for Bayraktar combat drones—the raised amounts are measured in millions—the Ukrainian Territorial Defense wouldn't mind receiving a few Javelins besides a dozen HIMARS systems. Obviously, not for resale. We need these weapons to survive.
West's reaction
Meanwhile, the Pentagon and Europol state that they fully trust Ukraine regarding arms supplies and didn't see signs of their trade. We still see news every day about additional weapons of various types arriving in Ukraine. Indeed, it's evident that if we were talking about actual trade in arms on the black market, why would donor states continue to provide them?
Moreover, the EU explicitly stated that russia was spreading nothing but a disinformation campaign among the European Union member states. Furthermore, the EU spokesperson for foreign policy and security affairs noted that the existing monitoring procedures for the EU members supplying Ukraine with military equipment complied with international norms. The military equipment is subject to strict control, and the Ukrainian side, in turn, undertook not to hand it over to anyone except its armed forces.
Is the Ukrainian side transparent?
Ukraine is ready for a clear and substantive conversation with representatives of international organizations. Secretary of National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) Oleksii Danilov assured Kyiv was ready to discuss, particularly with Europol representatives, facts and evidence and statements about alleged cases of Ukraine's "trade in arms and military commodities on the black market." After all, Europol first reported that Ukraine was allegedly trading in arms.
On July 19, the Ukrainian Parliament created a temporary investigative commission, including representatives of almost all factions and groups, to monitor partners' international technical aid to Ukraine.
We shouldn't forget that the NSDC presented the SOTA information and analytical system for monitoring the supply of weapons to Ukraine. The mass media reports that the SOTA allows the responsible authorities to monitor arms deliveries using different statuses (ready for shipment, on the way, received by the Ukrainian forces) and allows the representative countries to analyze arms deliveries in time and periods of deliveries. Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov confirms that Western partners have no doubts about the proper use of arms.
So if Ukraine traded arms, would the partners continue to supply them to Kyiv? It's not surprising that the russians made these statements at the very moment of the war when Ukraine seized the initiative and is successfully advancing its counterattacks. It is precisely the Western weapons that help us.
