Smuggled arms from Ukraine could end up in criminal networks: EU chief
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The EU expresses concern about weapons smuggled out of Ukraine and ending up in the hands of criminal gangs in Europe.
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Ukrainian troops (Archive)
The EU is creating a hub in Moldova to battle organized crime, particularly arms smuggling from neighboring Ukraine, an official said Monday.
EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson announced the EU Support Hub for Internal Security and Border Management at a meeting of EU interior ministers which was expanded to include counterparts from non-EU countries Ukraine and Moldova.
The meeting in Prague focused on the threat of weapons - many of which are supplied by the West - being smuggled out of Ukraine to equip crime gangs in Europe.
"By experience from the previous war in former Yugoslavia, we still have problems with firearms being trafficked from there to the organized criminal groups, feeding into violence in the criminal networks in European Union," Johansson indicated on arrival.
The commissioner mentioned that the hub will be a "one-stop shop" allowing Europol to share information and for the EU's border guard agency Frontex to support border management and detection of firearms trafficking.
It will also aim to counter the trafficking of human beings.
Swedish Migration Minister Anders Ygeman claimed that most of the weapons supplied to Ukraine were staying in the hands of the Ukrainian military, and "just a limited number of those weapons used in the war that can actually be used by organized crime later on."
But "we have to have measures of controlling weapons flow after the war in Ukraine," he said.
The interim head of Frontex, Aija Kalnaja, pointed out that Moldova was chosen for the hub "because this is where the trafficking of weapons can come mostly."
The Guardian reported in June that Interpol Secretary-General Jurgen Stock asserted that weapons provided to Ukraine will reach a global hidden economy and criminals after the war ends, calling on Interpol member states to work in cooperation on finding arms.
Stock said criminal groups try to exploit the "chaotic situations", warning from the resulting challenges.
Read next: Experts warn arms for Ukraine could have disastrous consequences
Ukraine sells weapons on black market due to limited ability to use
It is noteworthy that a couple of days ago, former senior Pentagon advisor Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik that Ukraine is selling weapons it acquired from the West on the black market due to the Kiev forces' limited ability to use them because of their lack of training, logistical challenges, and the diminishing size of the Ukrainian armed forces.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had previously said the arms supplied by the West to Ukraine were ending up on the black market and spreading across West Asia.
The statements by Moscow and the Pentagon are not just claims, as Kiev itself backed them by admitting that foreign aid meant for Ukraine was already being sold.
Ukraine's Bureau of Economic Security Director Vadym Melnyk told Ukraine 24 that the agency had identified repeated cases of the sale of Western military and humanitarian aid.
Similarly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had pointed out that Stingers and Javelin missiles, supplied by the West to Kiev, were already being sold at a discount on the black market and have surfaced in Albania and Kosovo, which Russia has warned from for so long.
Ukraine has received billions and billions of dollars in donated arms from the United States and its allies such as the United Kingdom and other NATO states in the past few months. The Biden administration alone, as of July 1, has committed nearly $7 billion, the US State Department said last week.
Just last Thursday, the White House announced that the United States was sending a new batch of military supplies to Ukraine. The new batch of arms supply is worth $450 million in shipments.
