Ukraine’s government has pushed back against western concerns that the country could become a source of smuggled weapons, but acknowledged it needed to expand its arms tracking systems.
Defence minister Oleksii Reznikov said in an interview that Ukrainians had every interest in retaining all of the $10bn worth of kit provided by western allies.
“We need to survive. We have no reason to smuggle arms out of Ukraine,” he said on Thursday, nearly five months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24.
Reznikov defended Ukraine’s record after officials from EU and Nato states told the Financial Times they wanted better tracking by Kyiv of western-supplied weapons over fears they were being smuggled out of the country and on to Europe’s black market.
Reznikov said some European politicians spreading what he described as false claims about the risk of arms smuggling from Ukraine could be disseminating “Russian disinformation” as they were “addicted to cheap gas and money” from Russia.
He disclosed that some of Ukraine’s allies had sent military representatives to the country to observe the flow of their donated weapons and he invited others to follow suit.
He said Ukraine was using Nato software, acquired in 2019, to monitor the destination and use of weapons provided by the west, which Nato allies could access. But it had a limited number of licences and trained users, which Kyiv was now trying to increase. “We need to move forward quickly. We understand that,” he said.
The system, currently only administered centrally, would be extended to brigade level and possibly to battalions, Reznikov said. Kyiv would consult with its partners on how far down to deploy it. Ukraine is also developing two other tracking systems to work in parallel with the Nato software.
He insisted there was no chance of heavy weapons systems, such as 155mm howitzers or US-supplied rocket systems, being stolen. They all had GPS trackers, he said, and western military satellites could also keep tabs on large equipment.
Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and lightweight “kamikaze” drones are of particular concern to western officials given their portability. Reznikov said that while these were not GPS tracked, they were limited to Ukraine’s special forces and therefore under strict controls.
“I discuss it with partners, I discuss it with other defence ministers — do you have any concerns? They say ‘no’,” he added.
Reznikov conceded it was not “absolutely impossible” that firearms could be smuggled across Ukraine’s borders into the EU. Weapons were transported in large numbers following the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, fuelling organised crime.
The authorities had handed out 21,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles to members of the volunteer Territorial Defence Force in the first three days after Russia began its assault on the Ukrainian capital, he said.
But the Ukrainian government or customs authorities had not been informed of any specific cases of weapons contraband by Europol, the EU police co-ordination body, since the invasion, Reznikov added.
There were only two incidences of weaponry crossing the border, he said. One case was for repairs of a western-supplied howitzer and the second was a shipment of blown-up Russian tanks for exhibitions in Warsaw and Prague.
Reznikov was appointed defence minister last year after spending nearly two years trying to negotiate a peace deal with Russia over the war in eastern Ukraine. Since the February invasion he has spearheaded Ukrainian attempts to acquire increasingly sophisticated weaponry from Kyiv’s western allies.
He said he was confident that Ukraine would be given larger quantities of long-range systems, in particular US multiple-launch rocket systems known as Himars, which he described as a game-changer in the war.
Ukraine has used them in the past three weeks to strike Russian ammunition depots far behind the frontline, damaging Moscow’s artillery machine. The US had been reluctant to send Himars, which have an 80km range and GPS-guided munitions, out of concern such a move could escalate the war. Reznikov said he was confident the partners would send more, including a 300km-range version.
“I think it’s a step-by-step movement. We give them proof that we can use it with precision and sophistication and we get more, and longer range,” the minister said.
Reznikov credited western-supplied arms, which have a longer range and are more accurate than Ukraine’s old Soviet-era artillery, with reducing the death toll among Ukrainian troops in the eastern Donbas region, which reached an average of 100 a day in May.
More rockets and artillery would be essential for any Ukrainian attempt to push back Russian forces in a counter-offensive, he said, adding: “By the end of this year there will be a serious change in the battlefield in Ukraine’s favour.
“I hope we will see the counter-offensive campaign this year and [that] it will be successful.”
