Category Archives: Arms trade

Belgian buyer of Europe’s spare tanks hopes they see action in Ukraine

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OIP built up a huge private arsenal, banking on there one day being demand for the weapons again

On the outskirts of Tournai, a sleepy medieval town in the gentle, Brueghelian landscape of the French-speaking part of Belgium, there is an unassuming grey hangar, barely hidden behind a fence. Inside are rows upon rows of German-made Leopard 1 tanks and other heavy fighting vehicles – some of the same types of weapons that top Ukraine’s military wishlist.

The hangar belongs to the Belgium defence company OIP and contains one of the biggest privately owned reserves of weapons in Europe. “Many of these tanks have been sitting here for years. Hopefully, now it is the time they finally see some action in Ukraine,” said Freddy Versluys, the head of OIP, as he toured the hangar.

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Campaigners seek to overturn Liz Truss’s resumption of Saudi arms sales

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Lawyers will argue the then trade secretary ignored Saudi air force’s bombing of civilians in Yemen

Anti-arms trade campaigners will seek to overturn a decision made by Liz Truss to resume UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia, arguing she ignored a pattern of bombing civilians by the country’s air force in Yemen.

A judicial review brought by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) starts in the high court on Tuesday, the latest step in a long-running battle over the legality of a lucrative trade worth more than £23bn since the war in Yemen began.

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Yemen: 87 civilians killed by UK and US weapons in just over a year

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Oxfam says its analysis of January 2021 to February 2022 underlines need for UK to stop arming Saudi Arabia

At least 87 civilians were killed by airstrikes from the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen using weapons supplied by the UK and US between January 2021 and February 2022, according to a new Oxfam analysis.

The charity accused the UK government of ignoring an identifiable “pattern of harm” caused by the indiscriminate bombing – and argues it amounts to legal grounds for Britain to end elements of its lucrative arms trade with Riyadh.

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UK to develop next-generation fighter jets with Italy and Japan

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Rishi Sunak says defence deal for Tempest means ‘outpacing those who seek to do us harm’

Britain will work to develop next-generation fighter jets with Italy and Japan, Rishi Sunak has announced.

The prime minister said the defence partnership will ensure the UK and allies are “outpacing and outmanoeuvring those who seek to do us harm”.

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Row brews in Iran over use of its drones in Ukraine war by Russia

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Conservative cleric and a newspaper editor openly critical of government’s stance on weapons it supplied to Moscow

An internal rift over the supply of deadly drones to Russia for use in Ukraine has opened up in Iran, with a prominent conservative cleric and newspaper editor saying Russia is the clear aggressor in the war and the supply should stop.

A former Iranian ambassador to Moscow has also hinted the foreign ministry may have been kept in the dark both by the Kremlin and the Iranian military.

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Iran says it supplied drones to Russia before Ukraine war began

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Minister says ‘small number’ of drones were sent to Russia months before invasion but denies supply continues

Iran has acknowledged for the first time that it supplied Moscow with drones but said they were sent before the war in Ukraine, where Russia has used drones to target power stations and civilian infrastructure.

The Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said a “small number” of drones were supplied to Russia a few months before Moscow’s forces invaded Ukraine on 24 February. He denied Tehran that was continuing to supply drones to Moscow.

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Ukraine arms manufacturer charged with treason over bugged phone calls

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Vyacheslav Boguslaev allegedly said he ‘completely understands’ why factory was bombed by Russia

Alleged recordings of the head of a major Ukrainian aircraft manufacturer accused of aiding the Russian military – saying he “completely understands” why a Russian missile was fired at his factory – have been released by Kyiv’s security services after his arrest at the weekend.

Vyacheslav Boguslaev, the president of Motor Sich, has been charged with treason after a raid at the weekend on his home in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia. The manufacturing heavyweight is suspected of selling engines – before and after the invasion – for Russian attack helicopters that have been used extensively against Ukrainian troops.

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BAE Systems in middle of dogfight between Saudis and Biden over oil

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As the row between the US president and the Gulf kingdom over increasing oil production escalates, the UK arms industry giant may have to choose which of its two lucrative customers to side with

The UK has long had an awkward relationship with Saudi Arabia, but that unholy alliance now faces a stern test. After Joe Biden reacted angrily to the Opec+ decision to cut oil production, workers at BAE Systems’ fighter jet factory at Warton, on the banks of the Ribble in Lancashire, will have an eye on the fallout from the oil cartel’s decision.

The US president had hoped to persuade the world’s largest oil producer to ramp up production in order to lower oil prices, which have fed into surging inflation and fears over a global recession. Biden had been cultivating relations with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, illustrated by a fist bump in Jeddah in July. But despite all that, Prince Mohammed defied Biden, with Opec+ opting for a cut in output, a move that was seen as siding with fellow cartel member Russia, helping prop up its arms revenues.

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Arms dealer ‘100% sure’ Russian agents behind blast at Bulgarian depot

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Emilian Gebrev says explosion on Sunday is latest of repeated attacks against him by GRU operatives

A Bulgarian arms dealer who survived an apparent novichok poisoning in 2015 said he was “100% sure” that Russian operatives were behind an explosion and subsequent fire at one of his depots in the country on Sunday.

“There is no way this could be an accident, there was nothing in the building that could have detonated without outside interference,” Emilian Gebrev said in a telephone interview.

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Iran to supply Russia with hundreds of combat drones, US says

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White House says it shows how Russia’s weaponry has been depleted by its relentless bombardment of eastern Ukraine

Iran is planning to supply Russia with hundreds of weapons-capable drones for use in Ukraine, according to a top US official.

Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said the information received by the US supported views that Russia’s heavy bombardments in Ukraine, which have led it to consolidate gains in the country’s east in recent weeks, were “coming at a cost to the sustainment of its own weapons”.

Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press contributed to this report

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Erdoğan gains from lifting Sweden and Finland Nato veto with US fighter jet promise

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Analysis: deal between Biden and Erdoğan is sealed in Madrid after Nordic countries vow to control support for Kurdish terrorism

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, immediately started to reap the rewards for lifting the block on allowing Sweden and Finland to join Nato when the Biden administration said it backed the potential sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.

Speaking at a briefing call on Wednesday, Celeste Wallander, the assistant secretary for defence for international security affairs at the Pentagon, told reporters that strong Turkish defence capabilities would reinforce Nato’s defences.

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Zelenskiy calls on G7 leaders to help end war in Ukraine by winter

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President speaks on video link, as leaders discuss economic measures and US confirms plans to send air defence system

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has urged G7 leaders gathered in Germany to help end the war in Ukraine by the winter as they planned new economic measures against Russia and vowed to “stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes”.

A six-page communique from the group of seven industrialised countries – the US, UK, Canada, Japan, Germany, France and Italy – said it was “committed to helping Ukraine to end Russia’s war … to defend itself and to choose its future”. It said it would provide materials, training, logistics, intelligence and economic support.

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Arms sent to Ukraine will end up in criminal hands, says Interpol chief

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Jürgen Stock urges members to cooperate on arms tracing as weapons will flood hidden economy when war ends

Weapons sent to Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in February will end up in the global hidden economy and in the hands of criminals, the head of Interpol has said.

Jürgen Stock says once the conflict ends, a wave of guns and heavy arms will flood the international market and he urged Interpol’s member states, especially those supplying weapons, to cooperate on arms tracing.

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Boris Johnson calls for Ukraine to be sent more long-range rocket systems

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Prime minister says MLRS rockets can help embattled forces but stops short of UK offering M270 system

Boris Johnson has said Ukraine should be supplied with long-range multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) to help Kyiv’s embattled forces prevent Russian invaders from gaining ground in the Donbas.

But the prime minister stopped short of committing the UK to sending the powerful M270 rocket system, which Kyiv has been pleading for from Britain, the US and other Nato members for several weeks.

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Weapons from the west vital if Ukraine is to halt Russian advance

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Analysis: previously there has been a reluctance to supply arms to the under-siege state, but that appears to be changing

Since the outbreak of fighting last week and after years of reluctance, western countries have promised to send thousands of anti-tank and hundreds of anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine, but they will have to get supplies to the frontline quickly if they are to be effective.

Germany in the past few days broke with decades of anti-rearmament tradition to send 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger anti-aircraft missile systems, while Sweden agreed to send 5,000 next generation light anti-tank weapons (NLAWs).

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Analysis: what weapons is Russia deploying in Ukraine invasion?

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Fears that use of indiscriminate armaments could amount to war crimes

Footage captured by a CNN crew of the deployment of a T0S-1 heavy flame thrower system which was filmed being transported towards the Ukrainian border on Saturday has focused increased attention on what weapons Russia is beginning to deploy and how indiscriminate they are.

The TOS-1, nicknamed the “Buratino” – the Russian version of Pinocchio – for its big nose, is one of the most feared weapons systems in Russia’s conventional armoury, a multiple launch rocket system mounted on the chassis of a T-72 tank capable of firing thermobaric rockets which use oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion.

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Why is the UK government still getting away with complicity in the Yemen war? | Owen Jones

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For seven years, the Yemeni people have been pummelled with Saudi bombs, many from Britain. Yet Westminster is silent

This is a far greater scandal than the parties in Downing Street. In a just world, it would prove the downfall of our prime minister. This week, airstrikes by the Saudis and their allies killed more than a dozen people in Yemen, civilians among them. Last month an estimated 32 civilians died as a result of the ongoing conflict. The country has been convulsed by civil war since 2014. For seven years, a Saudi-led coalition has been pummelling the impoverished country with bombs, many of them supplied by Britain. Through our staunch military alliance with the Saudi dictatorship, our government is directly complicit with these atrocities.

You can be forgiven for knowing nothing about any of this: Yemen does not matter, you see. Its people have been relegated to the bottom of the hierarchy of death, and most of our media show little interest in scrutinising our government for slaughter that it is directly complicit in. The Saudi violence has only increased in Yemen since October, after the UN human rights council voted to end its war crimes investigation following intensive lobbying by the dictatorship in Riyadh.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

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Increased repression and violence a sign of weakness, says Human Rights Watch

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Watchdog’s latest report argues autocrats around the world are getting desperate as opponents form coalitions to challenge them

Increasingly repressive and violent acts against civilian protests by autocratic leaders and military regimes around the world are signs of their desperation and weakening grip on power, Human Rights Watch says in its annual assessment of human rights across the globe.

In its world report 2022, the human rights organisation said autocratic leaders faced a significant backlash in 2021, with millions of people risking their lives to take to the streets to challenge regimes’ authority and demand democracy.

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‘Colossal waste’: Nobel laureates call for 2% cut to military spending worldwide

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Governments urged to use ‘peace dividend’ to help UN tackle pandemics, climate crisis and extreme poverty

More than 50 Nobel laureates have signed an open letter calling for all countries to cut their military spending by 2% a year for the next five years, and put half the saved money in a UN fund to combat pandemics, the climate crisis, and extreme poverty.

Coordinated by the Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli, the letter is supported by a large group of scientists and mathematicians including Sir Roger Penrose, and is published at a time when rising global tensions have led to a steady increase in arms budgets.

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‘Stab in the back’: France accuses US of sinking Australia submarine deal – video

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France has expressed fury over Australia’s surprise decision to scrap a huge submarine deal in favour of nuclear-powered subs from the US, describing it as a 'stab in the back' from Canberra and a strain on its friendly relationship with Washington. 'We had established a relationship of trust with Australia, this trust has been betrayed,' said the French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian

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