Are the weapons sent to the front likely to return illegally to Western Europe?

One hundred days of fighting in Ukraine and hundreds of thousands of weapons. How long before they fall into the wrong hands? “At some point, the war will end”warned on May 28 Catherine de Bolle, director of Europol, the European criminal police agency. “We want to avoid experiencing the same situation as 30 years ago, during the Balkan war.” In the wake of the wars of independence in the former Yugoslavia, arms trafficking fed criminal networks to the west.

So that history does not stutter, Europol wants to install “an international working group to develop strategies” against potential smuggling, said the official in the German daily Die Welt. Interpol shares these concerns. According to its managing director, Jürgen Stock, the European Union is “a likely destination for these weapons, as prices on the black market are significantly higher in Europe, especially in Scandinavian countries”.

“The wide availability of weapons during the current conflict will lead to the proliferation of illicit weapons in the post-conflict phase. Criminals are already focusing on this.”

Jürgen Stock, Director General of Interpol

in Lyon, June 1

The question is all the more sensitive as Western arms deliveries are increasing to help Ukraine against Vladimir Putin’s troops. Sweden has provided AT4 anti-tank rocket launchers several times, Belgium has shipped 5,000 FNC rifles, and Portugal has shipped G3 automatic rifles. In mid-May, the United States had also sent 5,500 anti-tank missiles, 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems and 7,000 light weapons.

It is impossible, however, to assess all the volumes involved, because some countries keep the details of deliveries secret. “The French Parliament should have information on the quantity of material, the timing of deliveries. But it is completely evacuated”regrets the deputy Sébastien Nadot (ex-LREM), whose written question addressed in April to the Armies remained a dead letter.

“This lack of transparency makes us prisoners of future misuse of these weapons.”

Sébastien Nadot, deputy (ex-LREM)

at franceinfo

EU countries are nevertheless signatories to a UN Arms Trade Treaty and have adopted a common position to establish control and traceability criteria. “For several years, Germany has added a clause in export licenses, for example, in order to be able to carry out stock checks on site, at the recipient’s”, explains Maria Camello, researcher at the Group for Research and Information on Peace and Security (Grip). But “it is not certain that this clause exists in the case of Ukraine”, she says. He is moreover “too early” to conduct inspections.

In theory, there is also technical tracing. “Laser photo-engraving, deep pressing that changes the crystalline structure of the metal… In recent years, technical efforts have been made to improve the marking of weapons”, explains Stéphane Audrand, a consultant specializing in the arms trade. In the Ukrainian context, he still evokes some hiccups, including an incomplete Swedish certificate for the transfer of AT4. The document did not include “all the serial numbers. These fumblings were quickly corrected later.”

Sufficient precautions? “Tracing is important to try to limit the circulation of weapons, but it works especially when you are not in a conflict situation”, nuance Nils Duquet, director of the Flemish Institute for Peace. During a war, “the weapons are transferred here or there, others are lost on the battlefield”.

There are currently few traces of embezzlement in Ukraine. In mid-May, testimonies mentioned the explosion of a civilian car (in Russian) on the outskirts of Moscow, with two Swedish anti-tank missiles on board. The owner of the vehicle has been remanded in custody, according to the Russian agency Tass (in Russian), specifying that this 52-year-old man was returning from a humanitarian mission in the Donbass. This isolated episode already suggests irregular flows.

Nevertheless Russians “manage to get their hands on western equipment”, engages Stéphane Audrand. He hypothesizes: “They will turn it against their adversaries and it will feed Russian criminal networks, sporadically.” The expert also considers the possibility of finding some of these weapons seized by the Russians “in terrorist and jihadist networks to then accuse Westerners of feeding criminal networks”.

According to him, supplier countries asked Ukraine to estimate stockpiles and material losses in combat. A delicate task in a high intensity conflict. Neither Customs nor the French Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Armed Forces have specified to franceinfo the possible guarantees of traceability demanded by Paris. The American administration would have organized a meeting with independent experts, writes the washington post (in English)in order to make these guarantees, without disclosing further details.

Even beyond the war, which complicates the census, concern also emanates from the historical context of Ukraine. With the fall of the USSR, this country inherited 30% of the Soviet military-industrial complex. “He then had large stocks and was at a crossroads of the post-Soviet world, towards the Black Sea and the Caucasus”to the point of becoming a “arms trafficking hub”, explains Stéphane Audrand,

Between 1992 and 1996, 32 billion dollars of weapons disappeared from military stocks, reports a study by the Strategic Research Institute of the Military School (Irsem). In 2010, the country still had 6.2 million small arms and light weapons (SALW), most of which were held illegally. Or the third largest stock in the world, behind China and Russia.

“By getting closer to the countries of the West, the Ukrainian governments have nevertheless made efforts to control this traffic”, continues Stéphane Audrand. This dynamic “laborious, due to corruption”, was halted by the Donbass crisis in 2014 which caused “a confusion between soldiers and civilians and a rearmament of civilians in the conflict zone”. In eastern Ukraine, stockpiles of weapons are being looted. From 2013 to 2015, the authorities recorded the disappearance of 300,000 SALW. “The areas controlled by the people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk (…) concentrate the majority of traffic”, writes Irsem.

Tokarev pistols, AK-47 and Dragounov rifles are among the essentials. Matt Schroeder, a researcher with the Small Arms Survey program, assures on Twitter (in English) that “the Ukrainian government has cracked down on these diversions, invested in the search and destruction of the smuggled weapons”. In four years, 1,600 small arms, 1.5 million cartridges and 900 rocket launchers have been seized.

And tomorrow, again ? “At this stage, the front line is sucking up all the ammunition and weapons”, considers Stéphane Audrand. In the absence of precise data, it is still “too difficult to comment on the future of the weapons in circulation in the area”adds to franceinfo Edouard Jolly, researcher in armed conflict theory at Irsem. “What we know from the former Yugoslavia is that when an armed conflict ends, the risk of dispersal of arms stocks is very high.”

“The first years after the war, most of the time, people do not sell these weaponsagrees Nils Duquet. We expect to see the same in Ukraine. At first, the population will fear the return of the Russians, so they will not sell their weapons. If there is to be trafficking, initially, it will rather be within the country.” After a few years, these weapons could land in Western Europe.

“Five years ago, we were already writing that a huge problem was about to arise. Today, there are even more weapons and even less control. And therefore more opportunities for criminal networks.”

Nils Duquet, director of the Flemish Institute for Peace

at franceinfo

The end of hostilities will then require increased surveillance, with “all existing control tools, legal and political”, specifies Edouard Jolly. A delicate task, because many Ukrainian civilians are now armed – President Volodymyr Zelensky had moreover signed several decrees authorizing the purchase and sale by individuals. In a context of high insecurity, the conflict has reinforced the will of part of the population to possess weapons, as shown by several consultations.

Nils Duquet does not believe in any weapons restitution programs in the years to come. At a minimum, it is better to organize registration campaigns, with a solid legal framework. “The main goal in Ukraine is to get better control over guns, even if that means legalizing their possession for self-defense purposes.”

Although most of the equipment used in Ukraine dates from the post-USSR era, Nils Duquet does not exclude that Western weapons delivered recently make their way back into the wrong hands. Even before the start of the war, Europol’s “Weapons and explosives” unit had already established contacts with the kyiv security forces. However, the service should “rapidly strengthen this cooperation, because the problem related to the weapons of Ukraine will be at least as important as in ex-Yugoslavia.”