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Text/Feiyun
The reason why the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has been able to continue to this day is inseparable from the arms assistance provided by the United States and the West to Ukraine.
Since the conflict, the United States and the West have promised Ukraine more than $10 billion worth of military aid, which is not small.
Prior to this, Europol also pointed out that the weapons aided by the United States and the West to Ukraine are difficult to effectively supervise and track, and may flow into the black market through smuggling, bringing uncontrollable risks to Europe.
Now, with the continuous increase of U.S. aid to Ukraine, the West has become more and more worried.
According to the latest news from the Financial Times, NATO and EU member states believe that there are too many loopholes in the way Ukraine handles Western aid weapons.
For security reasons, the West is seeking a specialized weapons tracing mechanism to prevent more weapons from flowing into the black market and thus into the hands of outlaws.
A Western source said that all weapons aiding Ukraine will go through a fixed process, first airlifted to southern Poland, then transported to the border, and then through different vehicles to transfer through the border. Transport vehicles are usually mainly trucks, vans, and sometimes private cars.
From this moment on, the weapons began to be unaccounted for.
Perhaps they have been transported to Ukraine, perhaps they have been returned to Europe, peddled to some organized underground criminal group, or they may have changed hands several times to other unexpected armed forces.
It is entirely personal speculation that, in addition to being used to arm the Ukrainian army, these weapons may also have the following 3 directions:
1. It flows to the black market and is then sold to a variety of buyers.
Some Russian media have disclosed that since the outbreak of the conflict, many advanced weapons aided by the West to Ukraine have flowed into the international weapons black market, and even can be bought at low prices on some "dark nets".
Russian journalists have contacted a Ukrainian businessman in the "dark web" market, who said that they can not only provide light body armor and light weapons to buyers, but also sell advanced weapon systems such as "Javelin" and "NLAW" anti-tank missiles, and even suicide drones such as the AMERICAN-made "Phoenix Ghost" and "SpringBlade" are also within the scope of business.
And their price is almost a "bargain" compared to the original price marked in the United States, such as the "NLAW" missile worth $40,000, only selling $15,000, worth $260,000 "Javelin" missile, only sold for $30,000, other firearms weapons are incredibly cheap, as for the trading location, some merchants say that they can be buried in a grove, mark the buried site, waiting for buyers to pick up, and some say they want to meet for a transaction.
In this way, most of the people who sell weapons are still the Ukrainian army on the battlefield, in addition to some illegal traders, who mainly use this conflict to buy weapons at low prices and then make a difference on the Internet.
2. Sold by the Ukrainian army to the opponent on the battlefield - the Russian army.
This may sound like an exaggeration, but on the Russian-Ukrainian front, anything can happen.
Many hungry Ukrainians traded these weapons with the Russians, and when a Javelin missile was cheapest, it was only exchanged for ten boxes of cans.
According to Luhansk, the Ukrainian army often exchanges weapons aided by the West for food and water for the Russian army, which has been going on for several months and is not uncommon. These transactions were usually initiated by the Ukrainian army, who took the initiative to find the Russian army and then barter.
(The Russian army displays "spoils of war" obtained by bartering))
On the one hand, these American advanced weapons are relatively unfamiliar to some Ukrainian troops, and they do not know how to use them; on the other hand, due to the lack of logistics and supplies of the Ukrainian army, many Ukrainian troops are facing the dilemma of hunger, and there have been Ukrainian troops who frankly said: No one has taught us how to fight and how to use weapons, but it is necessary to survive.
It sounds ironic, but that's the reality, the harsh reality.
3) The last thing Europe wants to see – weapons falling into the hands of "terrorists".
Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service has publicly stated that the United States is absorbing "terrorists" from all over the world and supporting them to fight in Ukraine as "mercenaries."
It is conceivable that this behavior of the United States will lay a "security risk" for the whole world.
Europol confirmed that a large number of "terrorists" have been found in Ukraine, and the United States is training and arming "terrorists" in its country in order to send them into Ukraine to fight the Russian army.
In this process, the United States will inevitably provide a batch of weapons and equipment for "terrorists", in addition, "terrorists" who bear the status of "mercenaries" may also get some weapons on the battlefield.
When the war is over, the terrorist forces will slowly rise, and the "terrorists" who have more advanced weapons and equipment and richer combat experience will become more difficult to exist, and the military strength of terrorist organizations will become more powerful.
In addition to acquiring weapons on the battlefield, "terrorists" have one more way to arm themselves, that is, the black market. The more fiercely russia and Ukraine fight, the more weapons the United States and the West will aid Ukraine, the more the black market will be "prosperous", and these "terrorists" cultivated by the United States may later become the most anti-American wave of people, os-laden is a good example.
Now that europe is talking about where these weapons are going, Europe is already anxious. Some countries in the world are in the midst of a long period of war, and the "prosperity" of the black market will greatly increase the strength of some militants, and the turbulent countries may be more turbulent, while peaceful countries may not necessarily continue to be peaceful.
To address this problem, the European Commission set up the "European Support Center" in Ukraine's neighbor Moldova to provide expertise and cooperation in the fight against arms smuggling, and the US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control also recognized this, saying that the United States would seriously fulfill its responsibility to avoid these weapons from falling into the wrong hands as much as possible.
But the U.S. rhetoric sounds more like a cliché, a cliché, and does not come up with a practical solution, as the Czech defense minister commented: Donor countries may have the heart to track the whereabouts of weapons, but the reality is that they cannot track the whereabouts of every weapon.
As the country with the largest assistance to Ukraine, if the United States really has the consciousness of "stopping the horse from the precipice," it should stop the act of "handing a knife" to Ukraine, stop arching the fire in the situation between Russia and Ukraine, assume the responsibility of a major country, and persuade and promote peace and talks from it. However, the United States may not do this, after all, the United States is still counting on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict to make "war money." In order to enrich its own pockets and weaken Russia' opponent, the United States is likely to run in the wrong direction, even if it is reminded by other countries in the middle, most of them will only pretend to be deaf and dumb and turn a blind eye.