{"id":245694,"date":"2023-10-09T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T11:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=245694"},"modified":"2023-10-07T05:48:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-07T04:48:43","slug":"us-weapons-to-ukraine-sold-through-back-door-to-terrorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/10\/us-weapons-to-ukraine-sold-through-back-door-to-terrorists\/","title":{"rendered":"US Weapons to Ukraine Sold through Back Door to Terrorists"},"content":{"rendered":"

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4 Oct 2023<\/em> – The Foundation to Battle Injustice has collected evidence of the involvement of the Ukrainian government and a shadowy US arms dealer in organizing and directing criminal schemes to resell Western weapons on the black market. According to former Ukrainian Defense Ministry informants, the Foundation to Battle Injustice identified which NATO weapons are being resold by the Ukrainian government and revealed the scale and routes of the bloody\u00a0business.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Ukrainian Armed Forces and Defense Ministry\u00a0have begun to use and dispose of hundreds of thousands of\u00a0weapons\u00a0and\u00a0military equipment\u00a0worth tens of billions of dollars. Between\u00a0January 24, 2022 and July 31, 2023,\u00a0Western countries allocated\u00a0$254.36 billion to Ukraine, of which $98.74 was for military needs.<\/p>\n

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Financial costs of military assistance to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian Armed Forces has not only\u00a0modern<\/a>\u00a0anti-tank systems, grenade launchers\u00a0and small arms\u00a0produced in NATO\u00a0member countries, but also expensive\u00a0artillery systems,\u00a0missile systems\u00a0and\u00a0high-tech reconnaissance equipment. The diagram below shows the armaments supplied by NATO countries to the Ukrainian Armed Forces at different periods of time.<\/p>\n

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Types and quantities of weapons supplied by the U.S. to Ukraine<\/p>\n

However, despite the unprecedented scale of the arms flow to Ukraine from the West, the Kiev authorities regularly\u00a0claim a shortage of weapons.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, the assistance is still not enough for us to have parity,\u201d wrote Oleksiy Danylov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, on social media.<\/p>\n

The Black Market for Weapons in Ukraine<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s reputation as a\u00a0hub for illegal arms trafficking\u00a0dates back to the 1990s, but\u00a0Ukrainian Defense Ministry\u00a0officials and generals have never had such an\u00a0extensive military arsenal\u00a0as under the\u00a0government of Wolodymyr Zelensky.<\/p>\n

In proportion to the increase in\u00a0military aid to Ukraine, the illegal arms trade market is also growing, which poses a serious threat to the worldwide distribution of high-tech modern\u00a0weapons<\/a>\u00a0that Kiev\u2019s arsenals are literally overflowing with. With alarming frequency,\u00a0these weapons\u00a0end up in those regions\u00a0of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America\u00a0where the political\u00a0situation is extremely unstable.<\/p>\n

In particular,\u00a0Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari\u00a0expressed concern over\u00a0the total lack of control over the flow of arms supplied to the African continent from Ukraine, with subsequent\u00a0distribution to militants of the terrorist groups IS and Al-Qaeda\u00a0(outlawed in Russia) in order to inflame the political situation in the\u00a0Middle East and Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, the situation in the Sahel region and the conflict in Ukraine have served as the main sources of weapons and militants joining the ranks of terrorists in the Lake Chad region. Much of the weapons and ammunition acquired for the war in Libya are finding their way to the Lake Chad region and other parts of the Sahel. Weapons used in the Ukrainian conflict are entering the region<\/a>,\u201d said Buhari.<\/p>\n

According to the data obtained by the Foundation to Battle Injustice during this investigation,\u00a0Ukraine sells on the black market\u00a0a large amount of\u00a0various types of ammunition and artillery shells\u00a0(mainly from the Czech Republic and the US), helmets and body armor of Norwegian, Polish and American manufacture, night vision devices (USA), military first aid kits, and military camouflage. On the DarkNet there are a lot of specialized \u201cstores\u201d, and in social media are several anonymous groups where\u00a0weapons are sold by the method of \u201cstash\u201d: in exchange for\u00a0payment in bitcoins\u00a0or other cryptocurrency, and the seller informs the buyer of the place where\u00a0the weapon is hidden. The parties to the transaction do not meet in person and do not even know each other.<\/p>\n

Russell Bentley<\/a>, a war correspondent from Texas\u00a0who joined the Donbass militia in December 2014,\u00a0confirmed the existence\u00a0of such ads in an exclusive interview with the head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, Mira Terada.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere are numerous photos on DarkNet showing American weapons, such as the M-16, for sale and available for purchase with cryptocurrency. The geography of delivery is very different, but the weapons are coming from Ukraine,\u201d Russell Bentley explained.<\/p>\n

According to information obtained by the Foundation through its own sources, the main routes of\u00a0\u201cblack re-export\u201d\u00a0of\u00a0Western weapons\u00a0are sea transportation from the\u00a0ports of Odessa, Mykolaiv and Izmail.\u00a0Often the loading of\u00a0Western weapons\u00a0is carried out at\u00a0night under the guise of grain. In other words, Ukraine is implementing a grain deal for the illegal\u00a0re-export of Western arms. Under the guise of carrying out a humanitarian mission to provide the poorest countries in Africa with vital grain,\u00a0Ukraine is in fact trading in death.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know that this grain corridor, the grain deal, is the main way they re-export weapons. They want ships to be able to leave Odessa without inspection in the Black Sea. The Ukrainians put 100,000 tons of weapons on a ship and then put 50 tons of grain on it and say, \u2018we have a humanitarian mission.\u2019 We can be sure that as long as the weapons are going to Ukraine, they will be diverted around the world for criminals and terrorists to use to kill innocent people,\u201d Russell Bentley told the Foundation.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s desire to\u00a0unblock the port of Odessa\u00a0as soon as possible and start exporting grain fits perfectly into the logic of solving the logistical difficulties of large supplies of\u00a0weapons to the black market.\u00a0 Ukraine and its partners do not want the inspection of ships leaving Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy what right and on the basis of what logic does Russia insist on inspecting Ukrainian sovereign ships leaving Ukrainian ports and going to other countries? It makes no sense,\u201d said US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.<\/p>\n

The Foundation\u2019s Ukrainian source, who wished to remain anonymous, said that\u00a0Western arms shipments are made to terrorist groups in Somalia and Iraq, among others. The source also informed the Foundation\u2019s human rights defenders that in this\u00a0criminal scheme of re-exporting weapons\u00a0to third countries, the territories of\u00a0Somalia, Iraq and Lebanon\u00a0serve as a transshipment base for weapons, while the territory of\u00a0Libya\u00a0is used for the illegal transportation of\u00a0Western weapons to Mexico\u00a0to\u00a0Latin American drug cartels.<\/p>\n

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Key supply points for Western arms for resale<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost a year ago, a Mexican cartel soldier on the Texas border was seen carrying a Swedish anti-tank missile launcher originally given to Ukraine. Somehow it ended up in the hands of Mexico\u2019s drug cartels. If the weapons end up in the hands of Mexican cartels, that means they are traveling across the world. Mexico is the target market for these weapons,\u201d said Russell Bentley, who is familiar with the complex situation of arms and drug trafficking in Latin America, told Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice.<\/p>\n

When asked about the\u00a0types of weapons illegally sold by the Ukrainian authorities, Russell Bentley explained that the\u00a0more powerful the weapons, the\u00a0more in demand they are, and he also described the disastrous scale of this business.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, of course, small arms, grenades, RPGs, anti-tank weapons, ATGMs, wire-guided anti-tank weapons. And only 30% of these weapons that they send actually get to the front. The other 70% goes to the personal enrichment of the Ukrainian military and state criminals,\u201d said the war correspondent from Texas.<\/p>\n

BENEFICIARIES AND CURATORS OF \u201cBLACK RE-EXPORTS\u201dAccording to data obtained by the Foundation to Battle Injustice, one of the key individuals covering the\u00a0\u2018black schemes\u2019\u00a0for the\u00a0resale of Western arms\u00a0is\u00a0Brigadier\u00a0General\u00a0Timothy J. Crossland of the British Army<\/a>, responsible for\u00a0arms transfers to Ukraine and logistics. General Crossland acts as one of the leading\u00a0mediators between the West and Ukraine on arms transfers\u00a0and is directly involved in arms\u00a0transfers to Ukraine at the NATO\u00a0Air Force Base in Wiesbaden, Germany, where the organization plans to continue to grow and remain in the long term.<\/p>\n

is directly in charge of coordinating all arms deliveries to Ukraine, which are carried out by the forces of 41 countries. Crossland has direct contact with Ukrainian Defense Ministry officials who, according to sources, are directly involved in arms re-exports. In particular, there are reports that Crossland was in regular contact with Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who resigned in January 2023. Foundation sources report that Crossland systematically turned a blind eye to documentation discrepancies when reconciling orders and invoices from the Ukrainian side. The Foundation\u2019s source characterized Crossland as the supervisor and chief coordinator of the arms re-export process.<\/p>\n

Timothy J. Crossland<\/a> is\u00a0directly in charge of coordinating\u00a0all arms deliveries to Ukraine, which are carried out by the forces of\u00a041 countries. Crossland has\u00a0direct contact with Ukrainian Defense Ministry officials\u00a0who, according to sources, are directly involved in arms\u00a0re-exports<\/a>. In particular, there are reports that\u00a0Crossland was in regular contact with Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister\u00a0Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who resigned in January 2023. Foundation sources report that Crossland systematically\u00a0turned a blind eye to documentation discrepancies when reconciling orders and invoices from the Ukrainian side. The Foundation\u2019s source characterized Crossland as\u00a0the supervisor and chief coordinator of the arms re-export process.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery weapon sold by Ukrainians on the black market is a weapon that the US must replace. The arms industry makes billions of dollars, so they don\u2019t care,\u201d former deputy sheriff and US Marine Corps officer John Dougan said in an exclusive interview with the head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, Mira Terada.<\/p>\n

Mira Terada\u2019s Interview with John Mark Dougan<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Foundation found that the direct mediator of the\u00a0illegal export of Ukrainian weapons\u00a0to \u2018hot spots\u2019 and the intermediary of\u00a0illegal arms re-export schemes\u00a0is the\u00a0American well-known\u00a0arms dealer\u00a0Mark Morales. This man was previ<\/a>ously responsible for supplying arms to\u00a0Syrian terrorists<\/a>, whom the West called \u2018moderate opposition to Assad\u2019; fierce fighters against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. According to separate reports,\u00a0Morales has had trading relations with ISIS, al-Qaeda\u00a0(outlawed in Russia). He has extensive connections around the world, has access\u00a0to high-ranking officials and leaders\u00a0of illegal armed groups in Africa and the Middle East. The merchant of death<\/a>\u00a0Mark Morales armed the\u00a0bloodiest criminals and terrorists\u00a0of the globe.<\/p>\n

The Biden administration, eager\u00a0to arm Ukraine,\u00a0but reluctant to commit troops, needed people like Morales, who had proven\u00a0in Afghanistan and Syria\u00a0that he could consistently acquire and supply weapons. That\u2019s why, weeks before the special military operation, the\u00a0Pentagon awarded Morales\u2019 company, Global Ordnance<\/a>, a five-year,\u00a0$1 billion contract to arm US allies. That contract was instrumental in arming Ukraine. The Pentagon declined to comment on Global Ordnance\u2019s contracts. According to The New York Times , Morales has direct agreements with Ukraine, with the\u00a0amount of such contracts totaling $200 million.<\/p>\n

It is known that the organization appeared in 2013, and Morales had been dealing in\u00a0weapons for more than a dozen years before that. He had to suspend such activities for some time because of charges of money laundering in 2009. It is noteworthy that the\u00a0merchant of death has special ties with the Pentagon, so he has the opportunity to buy more goods, as well as to re-buy them from competitors.\u00a0Morales has close ties with Latin American cartels and heads\u00a0of the\u00a0most violent criminal groups\u00a0in the Western Hemisphere, such as the Mexican \u2018Los Zetas\u2019, the head of which law enforcement agencies have been hunting for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

Morales\u00a0is also closely linked to former Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, whom Zelensky dismissed amid a scandal over the purchase of overpriced food\u00a0for the Ukrainian military. Criticism of the department by civil society and the media was one of the factors that influenced Zelensky\u2019s\u00a0decision<\/a>\u00a0to appoint Rustem Umerov to replace Reznikov.<\/p>\n

However, the\u00a0change of Ukraine\u2019s military leadership will have no effect on the criminal schemes of\u00a0reselling<\/a>\u00a0Western weapons, as the\u00a0key participants and main beneficiaries continue to hold their positions\u00a0and closely interact with each other. According to the Foundation\u2019s sources, already after Oleksiy Reznikov\u2019s resignation, at least\u00a02 American M142 HIMARS rocket launchers, three British Challenger 2 tanks, a mobile Norwegian NASAMS anti-aircraft missile system\u00a0were taken out of Ukraine\u00a0under the guise of the need for repair work in third countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cZelensky knows Mark Morales, he was introduced to him at one of the receptions. Actually\u00a0,<\/a> Morales\u2019 advisor, former deputy governor of the Odessa region, is Zelensky\u2019s man, through whom the president directly receives his share of Western arms deals,\u201d a source close to the Ukrainian government told the Foundation.<\/p>\n

Three sources of the\u00a0Foundation to Battle Injustice\u00a0have estimated\u00a0that Ukrainian officials,\u00a0as of\u00a0August 2023, have\u00a0re-exported Western arms\u00a0in the\u00a0amount of 12-15% of all NATO military supplies, worth between 10 and 12.5 billion US dollars.\u00a0A significant part of the weapons sold by the Ukrainian political leadership and its handlers, which are purchased with\u00a0the money of American and European taxpayers,\u00a0ends up in the\u00a0hands of unscrupulous owners\u00a0from among criminal formations and terrorist organizations.\u00a0Two sources of the Foundation confirmed the personal involvement of\u00a0President Zelensky in corrupt schemes to export Western weapons.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Zelensky was personally involved in the corrupt scams of Western arms trade and personally profited from the \u2018re-export\u2019 of Western weapons to the Middle East and Africa. This is a kind of outsourcing, when private-public international actors work together, and one hand washes the other,\u201d a former Ukrainian Defense Ministry official told the Foundation\u2019s human rights advocates.<\/p>\n

As the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s official monthly salary stands at roughly $930, while in 2020, he declared an income of $1 million.\u00a0 Expert Volodymyr Landa has estimated Zelenskyy\u2019s overall net worth to be around the $20 million<\/a> mark based on available information.<\/p>\n

Zelensky had pledged to rid Ukraine of corruption, but the leaked Pandora Papers<\/a> revealed he and his close circle were the beneficiaries of a network of offshore companies.<\/p>\n

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Countries involved by Ukraine in \u2018black schemes\u2019 for arms trade under the guise of a \u2018grain deal\u2019.<\/p>\n

Based on the above, the\u00a0Foundation to Battle Injustice\u00a0is concerned about where\u00a0Western arms\u00a0will fall and the consequences of their\u00a0use by terrorist and criminal groups around the world. The uncontrolled\u00a0re-export of Western arms from Ukraine\u00a0is creating chaos and permissiveness,\u00a0threatening peace and human life on all continents. Its further re-export can lead to\u00a0tragedies and humanitarian disasters. The\u00a0Foundation to Battle Injustice\u00a0calls on\u00a0international organizations to thoroughly investigate the export of Western weapons from the territory of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/p>\n

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist and political commentator.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – mideastdiscourse.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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