Excluding Russia from Security Council possible only if UN is disbanded : diplomat

Dhaka July 03 2022 :

Inside Russia : Outside Russia : News Digest by the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Bangladesh on July 03 2022.

INSIDE RUSSIA

Middle East, Asia can be promising for Russian timber export — Ministry

MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/. Countries of the Middle East, Asia, South and Central America can become promising export markets for products of the Russian woodworking sector, the Ministry of Industry and Trade told TASS on Sunday.

“We believe Middle Eastern and Asian countries and countries of South and Central America can become promising markets for sales of domestic products,” the Ministry said. Russian companies were cooperating with many countries even before introduction of sanctions by the European Union, it noted.

Russian companies are proactively reconfiguring both import and export logistical flows, the Ministry noted. In its turn, the Ministry provides assistance on this matter together with trade missions.

The European Union approved the fifth package of sanctions against Russia in early April, including the ban on import of Russian timber and timber products. Restrictions will actually come into force from July 10.

OUTSIDE RUSSIA

UK cautioned about military aid to Ukraine

London earlier asked the Scottish and Welsh national parliaments to commit millions of pounds from public funds to military support for Kiev

Scottish and Welsh ministers have said the British government took their budget funds for military aid to Ukraine, voicing concerns that it could set a precedent. The Treasury has told Scotland and Wales to contribute to a £1 billion ($1.2 billion) weapons package or have their budgets reduced.

Scottish Finance Secretary Kate Forbes said on Wednesday that Scotland agreed to provide the £65 million ($78.7 million) funding but only “on this occasion”. She cautioned that “this must not be seen as any kind of precedent,” while Welsh Finance Minister Rebecca Evans said she had been forced to set aside £30 million ($36.3 million) intended for “devolved areas like health and education”.

Devolved areas of the UK are controlled by ministers in the national parliaments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Evans said it was “not right” to use their funds for military aid and defense, a non-devolved spending area. At the same time, she added that Wales will continue to provide humanitarian support for Ukrainians arriving in the country every day seeking refuge from the conflict.

The Scottish government said the money would be used to help fund “sophisticated air defense systems and thousands of pieces of vital kit for Ukrainian soldiers” in order to assist Kiev in fighting off Russia’s military offensive. Scotland has previously independently provided £4 million ($4.8 million) in basic humanitarian aid – health, water and sanitation and shelter – for Ukrainian refugees.

According to Welsh Education Minister Jeremy Miles, there was “no consultation” on the question of military aid, although a UK government spokesperson told the BBC it was incorrect “to say the Welsh government was not consulted…they were consulted and agreed to make a contribution.”

Simon Clarke, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, asked the devolved administrations to contribute to a £1 billion fund to supply Ukraine with state-of-the-art equipment by either directly handing over the money from their budgets or by accepting a reduction from block grants they receive from Westminster.  

The UK Treasury “strongly disagreed” with the Scottish minister’s characterization of the aid request, saying that various government departments had been urged to contribute through their underspend. It also refuted claims that the move constitutes a precedent for raiding devolved budgets for reserved spending areas. “This is a response to an extraordinary crisis”, the spokesperson was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph.    

The British media has described the request as highly unusual, as such spending usually comes from Westminster.

The UK has been one of the strongest backers of Ukraine since the start of the Russian offensive four months ago. This week it promised to provide an additional £1 billion ($1.2 billion)  to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces, taking the overall military aid given to Kiev to £2.3 billion ($2.8 billion).The package includes various types of weaponry, including M270 Multiple Launch rocket systems, light anti-tank weapons and armored vehicles. 

Moscow has repeatedly warned against supplies of weapons to Ukraine from the US, UK and other allied nations, saying it will only prolong the fighting, while increasing the risk of a direct military confrontation between Russia and the West.

The concerns over devolved budget funds being used by the UK government came as Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced on Tuesday a target date of October 19, 2023 for a second referendum on independence from the UK.

John Bolton makes prediction for Ukraine conflict

Biden has “made mistake after mistake” in handling the crisis, the hawkish Republican and former US national security adviser says

US President Joe Biden had failed to deter the Russian offensive in Ukraine and now has no idea what to do with the ongoing conflict, former US national security adviser John Bolton has said. Bolton also claimed that a deal between Moscow and Kiev seems to be unlikely at the moment.

The Republican politician, who is a staunch critic of Russia and one of the most hawkish figures on the American political scene, appeared on CBS on Saturday, claiming that Biden had “made mistake after mistake” in handling the Ukrainian crisis.

The US leader had the means to prevent the Russian military operation, but “didn’t exercise them,” he insisted. According to Bolton, Biden shouldn’t have announced publicly that American troops wouldn’t be sent to Ukraine to “leave the burden of ambiguity on Russia.” The right thing to do for Biden was also to slap sanctions on Moscow before the start of the offensive, not after it had already begun, he added.

As for the possibility of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine being settled at the negotiating table, the former US national security adviser said: “I don’t see any possibility of a deal between the two of them.”

“I don’t think [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is in a position to say he has achieved Russia’s objectives. He may come to that at some point. It may be a lie, but he’ll find a way to stop the hostilities on his own terms,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also “has no flexibility to negotiate at this point,” as polls show that the majority of Ukrainians object to any territorial concessions to Russia, he added.

“So, sadly, particularly for Ukraine, I think this grinds on for some time,” Bolton said of the fighting.

When asked whether the White House had a winning strategy in Ukraine now after four months of conflict, Bolton responded by saying: “I don’t think they do.”

“I think now they don’t know what outcome to expect; they don’t know what they want to achieve,” he pointed out.

“The initial strategy [of the Biden administration] was to prevent catastrophic defeat” for Kiev as Washington expected Ukraine to fall in a couple of weeks, the 73-year-old said.

“Let’s not get too excited about the fact that Ukraine wasn’t overrun,” he urged, adding that “now we need to decide what our objectives are.”

According to Bolton, they should be “gaining again full territorial integrity and sovereignty for Ukraine.”

Biden addressed the Ukrainian conflict during the NATO summit in Madrid earlier this week. “I don’t know how it’s going to end,” he said, but at the same time vowed that “it will not end with a Russian defeat of Ukraine in Ukraine.”

The US has been the strongest backer of Kiev amid the Russian military operation, providing Ukraine with billions of dollars in military and financial aid, as well as with intelligence data. “We are going to stick with Ukraine, and all of the [NATO] alliance is going to stick with Ukraine as long as it takes,” Biden said.

Putin also commented on Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine on Wednesday during the Caspian Summit in Turkmenistan, reiterating that the military operation was going according to plan and that all of its goals are going to be achieved. “The work is going smoothly, rhythmically… There is no need to talk about the timing,” the Russian leader pointed out.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

Excluding Russia from Security Council possible only if UN is disbanded — diplomat

MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/. Excluding Russia from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is possible only if the entire organization is disbanded and created anew, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky said.

Commenting on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s calls to strip Russia of its permanent UNSC member status, Polyansky said those remarks “do not stand up to scrutiny.”

“Naturally, all normal people realize that this scenario will be possible only if the UN is disbanded and created anew,” he told the Soloviev Live TV channel.

In his words, Kiev’s task was to “stir up” UN Security Council member states, who are growing increasingly tired of the Ukrainian issue.

“Both Zelensky and Ukraine’s envoy to the UN are wasting their breath, claiming from time to time that we [Russia] have no right to this [UN Security Council] seat, that we retained it unlawfully after the breakup of the Soviet Union,” he said. “This is total nonsense, we have explained it, and even UN officials have provided due clarifications.”

Earlier, Polyansky said Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was allowed to speak before the UN Security Council on Tuesday remotely and without prior consultations with other council members, which violates the existing practice.

During his speech, the Ukrainian leader urged the UN to designate Russia as a “terrorist state” and exclude it from the UN Security Council, where the country has the permanent member status and veto powers.

US Reportedly Used Secret Authority to Conduct Proxy War Operations in Mideast, Asia-Pacific

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The United States has used a secret authority known as 127e to conduct at least 14 proxy war operations in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region as early as 2020, the Intercept reported citing documents it obtained as well as senior Defense Department officials.

The United States uses the 127e authority to allow US commandos to conduct so-called ‘counterterrorism operations’ through foreign and irregular partner forces around the world, the report said on Friday.

The United States, through the authority, is then able to provide foreign forces with arms, training and intelligence, who are then sent on US-directed missions targeting US enemies, the report said.

Citing retired four-star Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the report noted that the United States conducted 127e counterterrorism efforts in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

Another former senior defense official confirmed to the Intercept that a 127e operation took place in Iraq and obtained documents showed another 127e operation took place in Tunisia.

These secret operations have cost the United States $310 million between 2017 and 2020, the report said.

The Defense Department and Special Operations Command refuse to comment on the 127e authority because it is classified and the White House has failed to address the matter, the report said.

In addition, it is unknown how many civilians and foreign forces have been killed during 127e operations, but there have been US casualties, the report said.

The report said, citing a US government official familiar with the program, that only a small number of lawmakers on Congress’ armed services and intelligence committees read reports on 127e operations while others do not know they exist.

Almost Third of Americans Say They May Have to Take Up Arms Against Gov’t, Poll Shows

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – About 30% of Americans believe they may at some point have to take up arms against their government, according to a poll by the Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.

“And 28 percent of voters, including 37 percent who have guns in their homes, agree that ‘it may be necessary at some point soon for citizens to take up arms against the government’,” the poll said.

This viewpoint is shared by one in three Republicans and one in five Democrats.

In addition, the survey found that 49% feel more and more like strangers in their own country.

“A majority of Americans agree that the government is ‘corrupt and rigged against everyday people like me,’ including 73 percent of voters who describe themselves as a ‘strong Republican,’ 71 percent who called themselves ‘very conservative’ and 68 percent of rural voters. A bare majority (51 percent) of voters who call themselves ‘very liberal’ also agreed,” it said.

The survey was conducted from May 19-23 among 1,000 Americans. The margin of error is 3.53%.

Kiev distances itself from envoy over controversial remarks

Claims by Kiev’s ambassador to Germany about a Nazi-collaborator national hero have sparked an outcry in Poland and Israel

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has distanced itself from claims made by Kiev’s ambassador to Berlin, which have sparked outrage in Poland and Israel.

Earlier the diplomat, Andrey Melnik, denied that Stepan Bandera – a controversial Ukrainian national hero who collaborated with the Nazis during WWII – was implicated in the mass murder of Jews and Poles.

There are “no issues” that divide Kiev and Warsaw now, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday as it praised Poland for supporting Ukraine in its ongoing conflict with Russia. Both nations understand “the need to preserve unity,” it added.

“The opinion that the Ambassador of Ukraine to Germany Andrey Melnik expressed in an interview with a German journalist is of his own and does not reflect the position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine,” the statement added.

The comment came after Poland’s top diplomats demanded Kiev clarify its stance on Bandera and his role in the massacre of Jews and Poles, committed by Ukrainian nationalists along with the Nazis, during the WWII.

On Friday, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz sharply criticized Melnik’s views on Bandera. “Such an opinion and such words are absolutely unacceptable,” he told the online news portal Wirtualna Polska. Such words “are inconsistent with reality,” “do not help,” and drive a wedge between Kiev and Warsaw, he added

“We are interested in the position of the Ukrainian government,” Przydacz said.

Poland’s Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said on Friday he contacted Ukraine’s top diplomat, Dmitry Kuleba, over what he called “false statements on history” made by Melnik. Rau also thanked Kuleba for “a quick public intervention” on the matter.

I had a conversation with my friend, the MFA of Ukraine, @DmytroKuleba, about the false statements on history of @MelnykAndrij . I thanked min. Kuleba for a quick public intervention in this matter.

— Zbigniew Rau (@RauZbigniew) June 30, 2022

The Israeli embassy in Kiev also denounced Melnik’s words, calling them an “insult” to the memory of Ukrainian nationalists’ victims. “The statement made by the Ukrainian ambassador is a distortion of the historical facts, belittles the Holocaust and is an insult to those who were murdered by Bandera and his people,” the embassy statement read, according to the media.

Speaking to German podcaster Tilo Jung on Wednesday, Melnik repeatedly denied Bandera’s involvement in any massacres committed by Ukrainian nationalists and Nazi collaborators during WWII on the territory of the modern-day Ukraine, and insisted he was a hero and a freedom fighter who “acted in a very difficult environment” and had no need to abide by rules.

“There are no laws for those who fight for freedom,” Melnik told Jung at that time, insisting Bandera “was no mass murderer of Jews and Poles.” According to data brought up by Jung during the interview, Bandera’s followers, along with the Nazis, murdered a total of 800,000 Jews as well as up to 44,000 Poles in Ukraine during World War II.

 It is unclear how exactly Kiev resolved the issue, since Melnik appeared to double down on his statements after the interview. On his Twitter page, the outspoken diplomat shared a post by Sergey Sumlenny, former head of the Kiev office of Germany’s Heinrich Boell Fund, where he called on Germans to “humbly shut up about Bandera at last, or (better and recommended) kneel and ask for forgiveness.” Melnik’s caption to the post read: “Worth reading.”

SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION IN UKRAINE

Russia’s chief of staff visits troops in Ukraine

Valery Gerasimov has addressed ways and means of coordination between Russian troops on the ground

Russia’s Chief of General Staff has paid a visit to the country’s troops in Ukraine amid the ongoing military operation there, the ministry has confirmed in a statement.

“Army General Valery Gerasimov listened [to reports from] the commanders on the use of troops in the course of carrying out the tasks of a special military operation, as well as from other officials on issues related to combat support of the actions of Russian units in various areas,” the statement reads.

The army general worked alongside senior commanding officers at command posts of the Russian military units, paying “special attention to the use of automated combat control systems during combat operations,” the ministry added, without providing any further details.

The announcement comes a week after the Russian military revealed the troops involved in the ongoing conflict were visited by Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu. The minister presented top state awards, including Gold Star medals, to soldiers “who showed heroism and dedication in performing combat missions during the special military operation.”

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

Allied forces completely surround Lisichansk, Chechnya’s Kadyrov says

GROZNY, July 2. /TASS/. Allied forces have completely surrounded the city of Lisichansk, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on Saturday.

“The trap has closed, allied forces have completely surrounded Lisichansk. It’s fair to say that a full-scale offensive on the city will begin soon. The enemy has nowhere to go because all routes in and out of the city are blocked,” he wrote on Telegram.

According to earlier reports, over 2,000 members of Ukrainian territorial defense units remain in Lisichansk, protecting foreign mercenaries.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday that LPR forces and Russian troops had taken control of the Lisichansk Oil Refinery, the Matrosskaya mine and the Lisichansk Gelatin Plant.

Ukraine facing significant losses on all fronts – Russian Defense Ministry

Three battalions lost more than half of their personnel near the Verkhnekamenka and Zolotarevka settlements in just one day

MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/. Ukraine is facing significant losses on all fronts, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday.

“The enemy is facing significant losses on all fronts. Three battalions from the Tenth Mountain Assault Brigade and the 72nd Mechanized Brigade [of the Ukrainian Armed Forces] lost more than half of their personnel near the Verkhnekamenka and Zolotarevka settlements in just one day,” he noted.

Russian security services thwart terrorist attack in Kherson region – authorities

Officers from Russian security services detected a condenser exploder

KHERSON, July 2. /TASS/. Russian security services thwarted a terrorist attack in the city of Kherson, the regional Interior Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

“Officers from Russian security services thwarted a major terrorist attack in Kherson yesterday, detecting a condenser exploder,” the statement reads.

According to the authorities, members of a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group led by former Mayor of the Staraya Zbruyevka settlement Viktor Marunyak plotted to carry out a series of explosions. Marunyak managed to escape with the assistance of Ukrainian intelligence agencies.

Decline in Western training of Ukrainian troops – media

Lack of relevant experience leave Kiev’s forces unable to use advanced Western weapons systems, Foreign Policy has learned

Ukraine’s forces have received less training over the recent weeks, which impacts their capacity to operate some advanced weapons systems, magazine Foreign Policy (FP) reported on Friday, citing sources.

Since the launch of Russia’s military offensive in the neighboring country in late February, Ukraine has been constantly asking its Western partners to provide them with more heavy weapons and to do so as quickly as possible. However, as a senior US defense official told FP, “the drumbeat of faster, faster, faster” does not always work well because “the Ukrainians needed to have the training to be able to effectively use these systems.”

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian officials cited by the FP, complained on the one hand about the “too slow” pace of Western aid but, on the other hand, admitted that “beyond training for the HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) and Western artillery, military training for their troops has dipped in recent weeks, leaving them unable to operate more advanced systems.”

“For [Ukrainians], it is always going to be too little and too late, for natural reasons. However, sending things without training and logistics is a sure way they’ll have no longevity,” Oscar Jonsson, a researcher at the Swedish Defense University, commented on the matter, as quoted by FP.

According to the magazine, Western officials are now “unclear” about what system they can provide next to Kiev.

“It could take months to train the Ukrainians to fly F-15 and F-16 jets, even though Ukrainian military officials insist that many of their pilots are currently sidelined without enough planes to fly, giving them the ability to leave the country for training,” the report says.

Foreign Policy’s article was published on the same day the Pentagon announced an additional $820-million package of military aid for Ukraine, including two surface-to-air missile defense systems.

The new deliveries will include ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), up to 150,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition, and four additional counter-artillery radars. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his gratitude to the US and personally to President Joe Biden for the package, and especially for NASAMS systems, capable, in his opinion, to “significantly strengthen” Ukrainian air defense.

At the end of June, Britain said that it would provide Kiev with “sophisticated air defense systems,” drones, electronic warfare equipment and “thousands of pieces of vital kit” worth £1 billion ($1.2 billion). The announcement came less than two weeks after the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson offered Ukraine a major training program for its troops, “with the potential to train up to 10,000 soldiers every 120 days.”

Russia has repeatedly urged the West not to provide Kiev with weapons, saying it will only prolong the conflict and lead to long-term problems. It has warned that Russian forces will consider any foreign weapons on Ukrainian territory as a legitimate target. Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “pumping up” Ukraine with Western weapons will only lead Russia “to perform more missions on the ground.”

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

Ukrainian forces open fire on Slavyansk to blame Russia for killing civilians

MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/. Ukraine’s Armed Forces shelled residential neighborhoods of the city of Slavyansk on June 30 to blame the Russian army for killing civilians, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, the chief of Russia’s National Defense Management Center, said on Saturday.

The general added that Ukrainian reporters arrived at the scene minutes after the shelling.

“In Slavyansk, Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), in order to pin the blame for extermination of the civilian population in Ukraine on Russia, the Ukrainian Armed Forces carried out artillery shelling of residential areas from the Slavyansk feed mill plant (on Literaturnaya Street) on June 30, 2022. A woman was killed and about 10 people were injured,” said Mizintsev, who heads the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine.

According to Mizintsev, Ukrainian reporters were at the scene a few minutes after the shelling, recording the consequences of the allegedly indiscriminate strikes conducted by the Russian Armed Forces on the city’s civilian population.

INSIGHTS

Today’s Ukraine is the same ISIS just in Eastern Europe — Readovka.world

Zelensky’s Office not only does not ban the «Azov» regiment, but also transforms it to the real heroes of Ukraine

An analysis of the Ukrainian current events, the local army and the National Guard actions, the attitude towards their own citizens and a very questionable ideology tend European experts to suggest that the United States is setting up a new terrorist state. This is to create a European instability flashpoint, while frequently using very dubious technologies previously worked out on the ISIS case.

Above all, despite president Zelensky’s statements that there is no Nazism in the state ideology, the heroification of the «Azov» military formation using Nazi symbols is self-explanatory. It is the «Azov» fighters who represented by local media as national heroes and defenders of Mariupol. Yet, there are more and more evidences in mass media that civilians at the «Azovstal» plant have been used by «Azov» as a human shield for several weeks. This attitude is totally equal to what the world community has observed in Syrian and Iraqi cities showed by ISIS. The only difference is in ideology – there was radical Islam, here – neo-Nazism.

Many facts are on the surface. «Azov» soldiers have already become heroes of UN reports. The UN Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation in Ukraine reports are insane. No propaganda can compare with such a smooth narrative.

In May 2014, in the Zaporizhzhia region, members of the «Azov» battalion claiming to act on the SBU orders, kidnapped a woman nearby her house. They threatened her and tortured for about four or five hours. The kidnappers in masks tied her hands and feet with cable ties fixed with a metal chain, kicked her and beat with rifle butts, pinned needles under fingernails. She was also tortured by hanging by her hands. One of the kidnappers threatened to gang rape her.

Nowadays Zelensky’s Office not only does not ban the «Azov» regiment, but also transforms it to the real heroes of Ukraine. Cruelty, torture, lack of any human qualities are common not only for “Azov” itself, but also for a number of other detachments of Ukrainian Army.

Public execution of Russian military prisoners by Ukrainian soldiers is an enraging fact that has been confirmed on the level of United Nations and world’s human rights organizations. Legs with bullets in them, slit throats « videos of all these atrocities are available online. It is not a fiction of Russian propaganda, evidences of those brutal executions were published even on The New York Times website. .

Despite the fact that the Ukrainian authorities still consider Donetsk region as their territory, for several weeks the city of Donetsk is experiencing artillery strikes on civilian infrastructures, with dozens of civilians and children as victims. They use long-range weapons supplied by Western countries as a part of so-called Lend-Lease. France convinced the weapon would not be used against civiliansUkrainian Army used French CAESAR self-propelled howitzer during Donetsk shelling 

As locals assure, the purpose is to terrorize residents creating chaos and panic, not to defeat Russian Army. On hands of the Ukrainian Army blood of hundreds of civilians, including children, killed on Donbass with Western weapons.

All these facts are documented confirmation that terrorist organization is operating in Easter Europe, mimicking the «democratic country» and the name of this organization – Ukrainian Government. European taxpayers are funding the armament of «Azov» Nazis and other terrorist structures.

Western arms supplied to Ukraine offered on darknet – RT investigation

RT’s journalists were able to swiftly agree the purchase of a US-made Phoenix Ghost kamikaze drone

The lavish deliveries of ‘lethal aid’ from the US, UK and other NATO countries to Ukraine amid its conflict with Russia have led to marketplaces where some of those weapons can be purchased popping up on the dark web, RT Russian has learned.

The Ukrainian traders claim to offer not just small arms or body armor there, but also such sophisticated hardware as Javelin and NLAW anti-tank systems or Phoenix Ghost and Switchblade explosive drones.

That said, it’s not possible to completely rule out that the sellers actually did not have the said weapons in stock, as the RT investigators did not complete the purchase. Scamming schemes are common for dark web marketplaces.

RT was able to contact one of the said sellers through a marketplace on the darknet and agree the purchase, for a price of $4,000, of a Phoenix Ghost loitering munition, which had been developed by the US especially for the needs of the Ukrainian military.

The journalists, who pretended to be interested buyers, said they were also interested in a batch of American M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel mines, but were told that those were out of stock.

As for the drone, the trader assured that it’ll be placed into a stash, with its coordinates and the photo of the spot to be shared after the payment is made through the marketplace, acting a guarantor of the deal. The parcel is going to be dug into the ground in the woods, he said.

When asked if the Phoenix Ghost could be delivered to an area outside Ukraine, specifically the Polish border town of Przemysl, he replied this won’t be a problem, but would cost an extra $1,000.

This potentially suggests that the Ukrainian arms smugglers may have already established contacts with border guards and are able to cross in and out of Poland without complications.

RT has also exchanged messages with another trader, nicknamed ‘weapons ukraine,’ who was looking to sell batches of US-made body armor at the price of $ 1,500 for five units, and M4 rifles with a silencer and a hundred bullets for $2,4000 thousand per set.

That person also offered a wide selection of old Russian- and Soviet-made arms, including AK-47 rifles, handguns, grenades and sniper rifles.

The prices on the marketplace turned out to be shockingly low. For example, the British-made NLAW system is being sold there for just $15,000, while acquiring the anti-tank weapon legally could cost from $30,000 to $40,000, according to the media.

Last month, the head of Interpol Jürgen Stock warned that the conflict in Ukraine will result in numerous weapons appearing on the black market.

“Criminal groups try to exploit these chaotic situations and the availability of weapons, even those used by the military and including heavy weapons. These will be available on the criminal market and will create a challenge,” Stock acknowledged, adding that those arms could be “trafficked not only to neighboring countries, but to other continents.”

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in May that he discussed the importance of tracking and safeguarding the US-supplied arms with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and defense minister Aleksey Reznikov, who assured him that they’ll make sure that the accountability is there.

Moscow has warned against supplies of Western weapons to Ukraine, arguing that it only prolongs the fighting, while increasing the risk of a direct military confrontation between Russia and NATO.

Read us@googlenews