The diplomat accused the West of blocking OSCE meetings on Ukrainian Armed Forces weapons on the black market

Western countries and Ukraine are blocking meetings at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on the penetration of weapons provided to Kiev into black markets. This was announced on June 28 by Yulia Zhdanova, head of the Russian delegation to the Vienna talks on military security and arms control.

According to her, the main recipients of weapons are regional and international private military companies, terrorist organizations, as well as transnational criminal groups in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.

Thus, during a special operation of the US Armed Forces against the formations of the Islamic State group (IS, a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation), VZ rifles were seized in Syria.58 and Czech-made VZ.61 "Scorpion" submachine guns and ammunition. It was previously established that these weapons were provided to the Ukrainian army in March 2023.

"Of course, we clearly record all this within the framework of the OSCE military-political dimension. We used to have a very active dialogue on the issue of preventing illegal arms trafficking, and the organization was a pioneer in this field. But now Westerners and Ukrainians are blocking pan—European meetings on this topic," Zhdanova said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

The head of the Russian delegation noted that for the West, military supplies to Ukraine are a "sacred cow", although they occur in violation of international export control rules and mechanisms, and the weapons themselves are used against children and women, as well as to violate human rights. She called it an eloquent manifestation of the "rules-based world order."

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How do weapons from this country enter the black market

On June 16, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko informed Izvestia about Russia's demand for Ukraine to get rid of weapons supplied by the West. According to him, weapons should be guaranteed to be reduced and disposed of. He stressed that pumping Ukraine with weapons poses a huge threat to the security of Western countries themselves.