Friday

29th Mar 2024

EU creates hub to stop arms-smuggling out of Ukraine

  • Illegal weapons smuggling will 'feed into violence in the criminal networks in European Union' (Photo: Maja Zlatevska, Dnevnik)
Listen to article

EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson announced a hub in Moldova to battle organised crime, particularly arms smuggling from war-torn Ukraine, at a meeting of EU interior ministers in Prague on Monday (11 July).

The EU Support Hub for Internal Security and Border Management will focus on preventing weapons, most of which are supplied by Nato members, from being smuggled out of Ukraine and ending up with criminal gangs.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Such smuggling will "feed into violence in the criminal networks in European Union," Johansson said.

"It is hard to avoid weapons-smuggling. We try to keep track of them, but I would be lying if I said we will succeed. We failed after the war in Yugoslavia, and we can't prevent it now," an EU official, speaking anonymously, told EUobserver.

The hub will be a "one-stop-shop" allowing the EU's border guard agency Frontex to support local border agencies, and will enable Europol to share information, Johansson also said.

Each member state will also deploy law enforcement officers to the hub's head office which will be operating from the Moldovan capital Chișinău, increasing local capacity and aimed at also countering human trafficking.

Aija Kalnaja, interim head of Frontex, said Moldova was chosen as a base of operations "because this is where the trafficking of weapons can come mostly."

Swedish migration minister Anders Ygeman said most of the weapons supplied to Ukraine were in the hands of the Ukrainian military.

But speaking at the Anglo-American Press Association in Paris in June, Interpol chief Jürgen Stock warned that "once the guns fall silent, the illegal weapons will come."

"The criminals are, as we speak, focusing on them," Stock said. "We should be alarmed and expect these weapons to be trafficked to neighbouring countries and other continents."

He urged countries "track and trace" the weapons.

Ukraine has a long history of illegal arms trade, with the most prominent case being that of the MV Faina, a Ukrainian cargo ship that was caught trafficking tanks, artillery and AKM assault rifles to Sudan in 2009 — which came to light when it the ship was captured by Somali pirates.

The new hub comes amid urgent pleas from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to boost weapons and ammunition supplies to help counter Russian advances in the country's east and south.

Czech presidency to fortify EU embrace of Ukraine

The Czech Republic took over the EU's rotating presidency on Friday (1 July), which will be dominated by the economic and humanitarian outfall of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine slams grain trade restrictions at EU summit

Restrictions on Ukrainian agricultural exports to the EU could translate into military losses in their bid to stop Russia's war, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky warned EU leaders during their summit in Brussels on Thursday.

Investigation

How Western machinery is helping Russia kill Ukrainians

Russia's missile production capacities have been supercharged thanks to Western machinery. Despite European sanctions having been in place since 2014, many European companies have turned a blind eye to exports of valuable technology to Russian military factories.

Latest News

  1. Kenyan traders react angrily to proposed EU clothes ban
  2. Lawyer suing Frontex takes aim at 'antagonistic' judges
  3. Orban's Fidesz faces low-polling jitters ahead of EU election
  4. German bank freezes account of Jewish peace group
  5. EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania
  6. 'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told
  7. Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza
  8. Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us