With the influx of weapons into the conflict in the Russian-Ukrainian war and the presence of various military forces on both sides of the border, analysts specializing in this issue support the hypothesis that the war in Ukraine has most likely led to an increase in illegal arms transfers to the Middle East.

Edited by| Hugh Gey

Politic section -  CJ journalist

Ukraine conflict news section      

Kiev – June,15,2023

Among these analysts is Mark Galeotti, founder and CEO of the London-based Mayak Intelligence Group, who said: "there is an inevitable leakage of weapons, and this is still on a very limited scale".

The growing defense cooperation between Moscow and Tehran is evidenced by reports that Iran is supplying Russia with suicide drones such as the Shahid-136 used in Ukraine, and Russia is supplying Iran with advanced aircraft such as the Su-35.

The volume of Western military assistance, specifically American, to Ukraine has been increasing since the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022; however, Kiev's possession of such a quantity of advanced weapons instilled fear in Israel that it could be stolen by Iran.

In this context, a high-ranking official in the Israeli army revealed to Newsweek magazine that Tel Aviv is concerned about the risk of weapons provided by the United States and other Western countries to Ukraine, falling into the hands of Israel's enemies in the Middle East, including Iran.

"The shoulder-fired anti-tank missile systems, which are now owned by Ukraine, may fall into the hands of Russian troops at the front,"the military commander, who declined to be named, said.

The source added:"the forces fighting on Russia's side have orders to transfer the weapons and ammunition they receive from the fronts to Moscow, which gives Tehran the ability to access them due to military agreements between the two countries.

Warning of the seriousness of the situation for Tel Aviv, the official said: "by looking at the weapons, our enemies can reprocess them as before, but the biggest danger is that they will get into the hands of Hezbollah and Hamas.

The source pointed out that"the size of Western weapons, a copy of which Tehran now possesses, is not yet clear to us, although we are working to monitor this situation".

In the same context, a Western military source revealed to the same newspaper that "on August 20, 2022, a Russian transport plane landed in Tehran, carrying weapons worth 100 million dollars, including western parts obtained on the fronts with Ukraine, specifically American javelin and British anti-armor guns.

The source attached his information with satellite images showing this transfer of weapons.

Iran's U. N. mission told Newsweek it had "no information" about a possible transfer of U.S. equipment from Russia, but blamed Washington for fueling the war through the numerous arms packages sent to Kiev.

The Iranian mission said: "We feel that as this war continues every day, the chance for peace will become more difficult . In addition, the permanent damage that this war will cause will be severe for the peoples of the region and world peace in general,"he said.

The mission added: "Therefore, the solution to ending this war is not to send weapons to Ukraine . Instead, the two sides should be encouraged, facilitated and helped to sit behind the table and find a solution to end this war,"he said.

For their part, US officials admitted their concerns about the diversion of weapons provided by the Pentagon, although they greatly underestimated the risks, stressing that the measures taken by both Washington and Kiev to prevent the unauthorized flow of weapons were largely successful.

"The U.S. government remains fully aware of the potential risk of diversion and is taking proactive steps to mitigate this risk in close cooperation with the government of Ukraine,"a State Department spokesman said.

The spokesman said that the United States "also assesses the risk of seizing weapons before sending systems containing sensitive technology abroad".

So far, State Department officials "are not aware of any reliable evidence at this stage of the illegal transfer of advanced conventional weapons donated by the United States by Ukraine," according to the spokesman.

Rejecting Moscow's accusations to Kiev that Ukrainian elements are smuggling Western weapons to the Middle East in exchange for large sums of money, the US official said: "Russia continues to spread disinformation alleging illegal arms transfers to Ukraine to discredit Kiev and discourage strong international support for it.

"The Ukrainian government has taken strong measures to strengthen the control of donated military equipment, including the modernization of IT resources, the training of personnel for more stringent measures, and the creation of a parliamentary committee to oversee these efforts,"the spokesman added.

The United States has provided almost 50 billion dollars in military assistance to Ukraine since Russia launched its war in February 2022.

The growing defense cooperation between Moscow and Tehran is evidenced by reports that Iran is supplying Russia with suicide drones such as the Shahid-136 used in Ukraine, and Russia is supplying Iran with advanced aircraft such as the Su-35.

A number of Shahid drones have been linked to the reverse engineering of a US RQ-170 drone that crashed in Iran in 2011.

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