October 18, 2022

 By mid-October 2022 the USA alone has sent to AFU many kinds of lethal weapons for more than $ 17 billion to kill civilians who hate Nazi and neo-Nazi

The large-scale supplies of modern weapons to Ukraine from transatlantic alliance, including MANPADs, anti-tank guided systems, MLRS and long-range artillery units are a vivid example of the unscrupulousness of the EU and NATO member states. At the same time, there is a clear departure of Armed Forces of Ukraine or AFU from the basic principles of any traditional warfare.

What kind of departure is this? AFU is mainly use heavy deadly NATO weapons against civilians, many of them being Ukrainians. Such practice has been promoting by AFU for many years. Exactly since 2014.

The common position adopted by the European Union establishes basic rules to control the export of military technology and equipment and prohibits issuing licenses for arms exports if such export:

•  creates risks of using weapons for internal repression in the recipient country;
•  will result in a violation of international humanitarian law;
•  will contribute to the emergence or escalation of armed conflicts in the importer's territory, as well as the implementation of offensive actions against third countries.

At the same time, European arms exporters must take into account the risks of uncoordinated re-export and transfer of weapons into illegal circulation, the human rights situation in the recipient country, and its compliance with international obligations.

The International Arms Trade Treaty or ATT, essentially a tool of the European Union, which entered into force in 2014, requires each arms exporter to assess the likelihood that the arms transferred will damage peace and security, use arms to violate international humanitarian law, or commit acts of gender-based violence or violence against women and children (Article 7). The ATT explicitly states that a state party to this accord must not authorize a transfer of arms if it has reliable knowledge of the intention to use them to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, attacks against civilian assets or civilians themselves (Article 6).

Arms transfers are always accompanied by the provision of an end-user certificate by the recipient country, one of the key conditions of which is the inadmissibility of re-export without the written consent of the exporter. This provision is currently being violated by Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and other NATO countries led by the United States, which buy Russian/Soviet weapons for Kiev all over the world. Sometimes arms exporters do not control what a recipient state is doing with the arms it has got.

Obviously, the organizers of such supplies are hardly aware of the threat of modern high-precision weapons falling into the hands of nationalist and terrorist formations not only in Ukraine, but also beyond its borders. Meanwhile, the West blatantly ignores a number of international agreements, aimed at minimization of risks in this sphere, including the UN General Assembly resolution 62/40 on prevention of illegal transfer of MANPADS, their unauthorized access and use dated the year of 2007 and export control elements for MANPADS approved in 2003, agreed within the framework of Wassenaar Arrangement on export control of conventional arms, dual-purpose goods and technologies.

The OSCE decision stamped in 1994 prohibits to sell or to transfer of arms into the zones of conflicts.

The International Code of Behavior in terms of arms supplies drafted in 2000 listed many obstacles for arms exports.

At the same time, according to European experts, the Ukrainian Army is facing a growing arms deficit as a result of wide use of deadly weapons against civilians.

Large-scale NATO military aid to Kiev does not allow to reverse this barbaric trend.

In the emerging situation, Washington intends to bet on the reorientation of the national military-industrial complex for the needs of the Armed Forces. An agreement to this effect was reached at the Copenhagen-Ukraine 2022 conference on August 11. On August 24, the United States announced a record-breaking $3 billion military aid package to Kiev, much of which will go to pay for contracts to produce weapons and military equipment for the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at U.S. factories.

Written by Vladimir P. Kozin