Did American Weapons Destined for Ukraine End Up in the Hands of Hamas?
There may be a kernel of truth to Moscow's claims | INVESTIGATIONS
What do Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Hamas militants have in common? The answer is, quite possibly, NATO weapons.
Almost immediately after the start of the shocking offensive against Israel by Hamas on October 7th, 2023, rumors began to fly across social media that Palestinian militants had received weapons sold to them from Ukraine. If proven true, the revelations would almost certainly shake the global world order to its core.
Ukrainian intelligence confirmed Monday, October 9th, 2023, that weapons of American and European origin were discovered in the Gaza strip and used in the attack against Israel - though it claimed the arms were collected from battlefields as trophies by the Russian Federation and then given to Hamas in Palestine in an effort to discredit the Ukrainian military.
The Ukrainian government has pointedly and repeatedly denied any accusation that any weapons shipments it received deliberately ended up in the hands of the Palestinians, and Hamas officials have yet to confirm any report of receiving Ukrainian arms. In an article with Military Media, Colonel Petro Chernik of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stated that,
“[The Russians] claim that 'Hamas' is armed with weapons provided by Ukraine or that Ukraine somehow transfers weapons it received from allies. This is fundamentally impossible… We cannot do anything like this through Iran because we have imposed sanctions on this country for at least fifty years ahead. Through other countries, such as Egypt, Syria, or Jordan, it is also impossible to do so because we would need the appropriate logistical routes. Therefore, any information related to the sale of weapons to 'Hamas' is nothing more than an information-psychological operation."1
In June 2023, the US State Department issued a statement to similar effect, saying that it was “unaware of any credible evidence at this point of illicit diversion of U.S. donated advanced conventional weapons by Ukraine."2
On its face, it seems extremely unlikely that the Ukrainian government would shoot itself in the foot by selling weapons to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, and risk losing the billions in aid from Western governments it has received since the start of the war. Furthermore, Ukraine can’t afford any ruptures with Israel as the country desperately pines for Israeli support, specifically imploring it to share its anti-missile technology, known as the “Iron Dome.” It’s equally hard to imagine the Ukrainian government negotiating any sort of deal with Iran, single-handedly the biggest backer of the Hamas and Hezbollah terror groups, given the Iranian government’s unwavering support of Ukraine’s mortal enemy, Russia, in the conflict. All in all, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that Ukraine sold weapons to Hamas.
However, whether Ukrainian guns were diverted illegally and ended up in the hands of Middle Eastern terrorists is different question entirely.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal this past June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained his country’s reluctance to share its weapons systems with Ukraine, saying that,
“I think it’s important to understand that we’re concerned also with the possibility that systems that we would give to Ukraine would fall into Iranian hands and could be reversed engineered and we would find ourselves facing Israeli systems used against Israel.”3
It turns out Netanyahu may have been right. Not even a month after his comments, it was revealed that the Defense Department inspector general had found various flaws in tracking of US arms exports to Ukraine and that at various times weapons had, in fact, been diverted, contrary to the June statement from the State Department. The report from October 2022, only made available through a FOIA request from Military.com in 2023, primarily laid the failure on the difficulty of tracking weapons in a theater of war in which the US has no active troops or personnel on the ground. "The inability of [Defense Department] personnel to visit areas where equipment provided to Ukraine was being used or stored significantly hampered [Kyiv's Office of Defense Cooperation]'s ability to execute [end-use monitoring]," said one portion of the inspector general’s report.4
The report outlined several instances in which weapons had been diverted to criminal elements, including one instance during the August of 2022 when a discovery by Ukrainian intelligence services revealed that a group of volunteer battalion members had pilfered 60 rifles and nearly 1,000 rounds of ammunition, stashing them in a warehouse, “presumably for sale on the black market.” The inspector general further described the disruption of a group of arms traffickers who had stolen weapons from the front lines in southern Ukraine, as well as an organized crime group that had joined a volunteer battalion using forged identity documents and stolen a grenade launcher, machine gun, and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition, among other incidents. The report does not explicitly state that any of the weapons or supplies were from Western aid sources; however, the implication does not bode well for the future of American aid to Ukraine. Given the massive quantities of arms worth billions pouring in from NATO and its allies, as well as the fact that the report mentions the incidents at all, it’s likely the weapons involved were derived from Western aid. The true scope of these diversions is likely even larger than what is currently known to the public.
The heavily-redacted report echoed concerns related to tracking weapons previously voiced in other reports already available to the public, although those reports had not disclosed any knowledge of arms being stolen or lost.
“Personnel did not have the required accountability of the thousands of defense items that they received and transferred," the department's inspector general ultimately concluded.
There is also the small issue that the logistics “impossibilities” Colonel Chernik describes simply aren’t true. The Flemish Peace Institute identified several well-documented regional and international trafficking routes originating in Ukraine and fanning out through Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Turkey (where Iran has been previously documented enlisting the help of organized crime groups to achieve military objectives) and the former Yugoslavia, as well as certain EU member states (such as Romania), all of which could feasibly transport weapons to the Palestinian territories or Iran, at least in theory.56 The Institute further pointed out that through such routes,
“…a number of high-level state officials have facilitated massive arms flows to embargoed third parties, often states under international embargo. The most prominent case was that of the MV Faina, a Ukrainian cargo ship that was caught [in 2008] trafficking tanks, artillery and AKM assault rifles to Sudan after it was captured by pirates.”7
Often beginning in Iran or Yemen, the route through Sudan, up through the Sinai peninsula in Egypt, and into Gaza is one of the most common methods of smuggling weapons into Palestine, and use of it by Hamas has been documented.8 Additionally, cables leaked by Wikileaks in 2010 demonstrated the US government’s continuing struggle to prevent arms transfers, both legal and illegal, from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, specifically to regimes and terrorist groups hostile to the US in states such as Iraq, Yemen, south Sudan, and Iran.9 By 2012 and the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, the UN documented billions of dollars flowing from Eastern Europe to the Middle East terror groups such as Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra, and pro-Syrian government forces.10 Weapons sent to state actors, such as Saudi Arabia, were often rerouted to Syria. Even (American) weapons from places as far away as Afghanistan, seized after the fall of the Afghan government in 2021, have been reported in the Gaza strip.11 This is all completely neglecting to mention that in 2005, international criminals did just what the Colonel claims is impossible - illegally smuggling 12 Kh-55 cruise missiles from Ukrainian stockpiles to Iran.12 Clearly, logistics is not a problem.
The issue of weapons diversion from Ukraine is clearly not by any means new. In fact, in a report titled “The Conflict in Ukraine and its Impact on Organized Crime and Security",” the United Nations reported that during the initial stages of the conflict,
“at least 300,000 small arms, most of which were given to Ukraine’s defence by western partners, were stolen or lost between 2013 and 2015, with just 4,000 retrieved since then. According to UNODC, most of these small arms entered the wider illicit market in Ukraine and abroad via the Odesa region, sustaining criminal enterprises.”13
The report also described allegations that at least one “individual in a senior position in Ukraine’s foreign fighters’ units” was affiliated with Polish organized crime and was “implicated in arms theft, among other crimes,” and maintained that “there is a high risk of small weapons proliferation” from Western-supplied arms.
Such fears have been present since the very start of the war. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has been the playground of an organized crime community well-known for its highly-developed black market arms trade, which the GI-TOC 2021 Global Organized Crime Index designated as the country’s most pervasive criminal market. Consequently, Interpol Chief Jürgen Stock warned that:
“Once the guns fall silent [in Ukraine], the illegal weapons will come. We know this from many other theatres of conflict. The criminals are even now, as we speak, focusing on them.”14
Likewise, upon the outbreak of hostilities between Ukraine and Russia, Europol issued a statement saying:
“Regarding the war in Ukraine, Europol has warned that the proliferation of firearms and explosives in Ukraine could lead to an increase in firearms and munitions trafficked into the EU via established smuggling routes or online platforms. This threat might even be higher once the conflict has ended.”15
The shady arms dealers the Pentagon has used as intermediaries to get weapons to Ukraine since the outbreak of the war haven’t exactly helped soothe those fears. This past September, The New York Times published a short profile on Marc Morales, a US arms dealer that has recently taken on the mantle of one of the largest private arms procurers for the Ukrainian military. The article reported that,
“The Justice Department indicted [Morales] in 2009 on conspiracy and money laundering charges after it said he was caught on tape discussing methods for paying bribes to foreign officials. ‘You just got to be smarter than the government,’ Mr. Morales said on one recording. (F.B.I. agents badly botched the case, and prosecutors ultimately dropped the charges.)”16
Certainly Morales is a person you can trust with arms in warzone with a reputation as one of the largest illicit arms markets in the world … right? A similar change in tune came from the Ukrainian military in 2023 regarding Serhiy Pashinsky, a former member of parliament, arms dealer, and a man once described by Ukrainian President Zelenskyy as a "criminal" for his involvement in corruption in Ukraine.17 Upon the invasion of the country in 2022, however, Pashinsky and his company emerged from the conflict “as a top weapons supplier for the government in Kyiv,” according to Bloomburg.
Many Ukrainian soldiers have described their own personal experience with the arms market in Ukraine, which they often use to survive, as one report from the Global Initiative on Organized Crime highlights:
“ ‘Many people who came back from the front in the early stages of the [Donbas] war brought their weapons back with them.’ Anecdotal support for this claim abounds, such as the soldier who was called up in 2014 and admitted that, as the men had not been paid their salaries while fighting, ‘everyone who was mobilized brought home at least two or three guns,’ adding, ‘For my family, it was like hard currency.’ "18
Other as-of-yet unconfirmed reports (mostly from the International Legion) describe trucks of Western Javelin missiles simply disappearing from units, as well as weapons stockpiles being switched to civilian vehicles and taken to undisclosed locations.19
“It is also salient to reflect,” commented the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, “that given the prevalence of checkpoints in Ukraine since the war started, these weapons could not have moved unless the traffickers were operating as military personnel, or with the collusion of corrupt checkpoint guards.”
Even war hero Nadiya Savchenko, a Ukrainian pilot jailed in Russia for two years, lamented how commonplace arms trafficking was within the Ukrainian army, with guns that should have ended up in the hands of soldiers instead ending up on the black market.20
“I remember how it all began: The guys were mobilized but not given automatic rifles,” she told The Associated Press. "(But) they understood that an automatic rifle is the only thing that can protect their life. And then automatic rifles became worth their weight in gold. They bought them and hid them.”
Stories such as these abound in Ukraine and Russia. The same report described the rise in crime that accompanied the outbreak of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. In Moscow, the violent crime rate rose by 365% in the 11 months following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 alone, and by 540% in Kursk. Across the country as a whole, the violent crime rate has risen by a third, a rise experts attributed to the proliferation of weapons from the conflict. “A lot of weapons have been coming from Ukraine lately. The DNR and LNR are literally stuffed with them,” remarked one Russian police colonel as early as 2015.21
In an article for Newsweek titled “Israel Worries U.S. Weapons for Ukraine Are Ending Up in Iran's Hands,” several Israeli military figures specifically stressed their concern over that flow of arms and technology from Ukraine spilling over into Palestine and Iran.
“ ‘One is that they can research capabilities, and then learn how to manufacture them. I'm talking especially about Iran,’ the Israeli commander told Newsweek. ‘The other problem is that we are very worried that some of these capabilities are going to fall to Hezbollah and Hamas' hands.’ ”22
The same article went on to report that, according to an anonymous intelligence source, Russia had shipped cargo worth approximately $100 million to Iran in August of 2023 - including a large cache of Western weapons from Ukraine. These weapons allegedly included U.S.-made Javelins and United Kingdom-made Next-Generation Light Anti-armor Weapons (NLAWs). Business Insider also reported on Russian transport of American arms recovered from the battlefield in Ukraine to Iran (and potentially its proxies) this past March.23
Additionally, by 2022, the Russian Federation was recruiting mercenaries from Libya, Syria, and Chechnya to help support its forces in Ukraine. According to The Washington Post,
“During a televised meeting of Russia’s Security Council in March, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East stood ready to fight alongside Russian-backed forces in Eastern Ukraine.
In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his approval, saying, ‘We need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone.’
At the same meeting, Shoigu proposed handing over captured U.S. Javelin and Stinger missiles to pro-Russian separatists in Donbas region. ‘Please do this,’ Putin told Shoigu.
The introduction of foreign fighters to a conflict runs the risks of weapons returning to those individuals’ countries of origin when the fighting in Ukraine ends.”24
There exists the very real possibility that militants the Russians paid to fight for it in Ukraine brought back US arms to help support the Palestinian war effort.
Terrorists have tried to use Ukraine before as a depot for weapons and supplies before; in one instance in 2016, a Frenchman was arrested in Ukraine after purchasing “five machine guns, two rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 125 kilograms (275 pounds) of TNT, 100 detonators and other arms” to be used in terror attacks against France during that summer’s European football championship.25
So far, there exists no hard evidence - no “smoking gun” - linking any Ukrainian military sources to the Western weapons that somehow landed in the hands of Palestinian terrorists and were used in the recent attack. While likely not sold in any “deal with the devil” from Ukraine to Hamas, opportunities for arms flows from Ukraine to the Middle East abound, and remains a significant risk. To his credit, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has enacted numerous positive reforms and probably combatted corruption in Ukraine more aggressively and effectively than any administration preceding him. But as long as corruption is endemic to Ukraine and Western attempts to track guns continue to flounder, well-intentioned Western weapons destined for Ukraine very well could find themselves used against allies in Middle East, if they haven’t been already; the need for strong arms controls cannot be overemphasized.
“The true war is a celebration of markets,” said Thomas Pynchon.
Odessa Journal. "The Reports of Ukrainian Weapons Being Sold to Hamas Terrorists Are Russian Disinformation." Odessa Journal, October 9, 2023. https://odessa-journal.com/the-reports-of-ukrainian-weapons-being-sold-to-hamas-terrorists-are-russian-disinformation.
O’Connor, Tom. "Israel Worries US Weapons for Ukraine Are Ending Up in Iran’s Hands." Newsweek, June 15, 2023. https://www.newsweek.com/israel-worries-us-weapons-ukraine-are-ending-irans-hands-1806131.
Times of Israel. "Netanyahu Rules Out Giving Ukraine Iron Dome Anti-Missile System." Times of Israel, June 29, 2023. https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-rules-out-giving-ukraine-iron-dome-anti-missile-system/.
Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense. "The DoD’s Accountability of Equipment Provided to Ukraine." U.S. Department of Defense, October 6, 2022. https://media.defense.gov/2023/Jul/21/2003265375/-1/-1/1/DODIG-2023-002%20(REDACTED).PDF.
Sinaee, Maryam. "Iran's Guards Use Criminals for Terror Operations: Israeli Official." Iran International, July 8, 2022. https://www.iranintl.com/en/202207083106.
Buscemi, Francesco, Nils Duquet, and Ekaterina Golovko. "Illicit Firearms Proliferation in the EU Periphery: The Case of Ukraine." Flemish Peace Institute, 2018. https://flemishpeaceinstitute.eu/safte/files/project_safte_eu_neighbourhood_ukraine.pdf.
Ibid, 470.
Amer, Adnan Abu. "Report Outlines How Iran Smuggles Arms to Hamas." Al-Monitor, April 9, 2021. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/04/report-outlines-how-iran-smuggles-arms-hamas.
Booth, Robert. "WikiLeaks Cables: US Fights Flow of Arms from Eastern Europe to Its Enemies." The Guardian, December 6, 2010. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/06/wikileaks-cables-arms-eastern-europe.
Angelovski, Ivan, Miranda Patrucic, and Lawrence Marzouk. "Revealed: the £1bn of Weapons Flowing from Europe to Middle East." The Guardian, July 27, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/27/weapons-flowing-eastern-europe-middle-east-revealed-arms-trade-syria.
Middle East Monitor (MEMO). "Israel: US Arms Left in Afghanistan Reach Gaza." Middle East Monitor, June 17, 2023. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230617-israel-us-arms-left-in-afghanistan-reach-gaza/.
Holley, David. "China, Iran Missile Sales Confirmed." Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2005. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-mar-19-fg-missiles19-story.html.
Willsher, Kim. "Arms Sent to Ukraine Will End Up in Criminal Hands, Says Interpol Chief." The Guardian, June 2, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/ukraine-weapons-end-up-criminal-hands-says-interpol-chief-jurgen-stock.
Europol. "Europol Statement on the Cooperation with Ukraine." Europol, July 22, 2023. https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/europol-statement-cooperation-ukraine#:~:text=Regarding%20the%20war%20in%20Ukraine,once%20the%20conflict%20has%20ended.
New York Times. "In Ukraine, a U.S. Arms Dealer Is Making a Fortune and Testing Limits." New York Times, September 9, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/09/world/europe/ukraine-military-arms-dealer-pentagon.html.
Ibid.
Davis, Charles. "A Ukrainian Arms Dealer Accused of Corruption is Now One of the Country's Top Weapons Suppliers." Business Insider, August 12, 2023. https://www.businessinsider.com/serhiy-pashinsky-ukraine-relies-on-arms-dealer-accused-of-corruption-2023-8.
O’Connor, Tom. "Israel Worries US Weapons for Ukraine Are Ending Up in Iran’s Hands."
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. "New Dynamics, New Opportunities: Trends in Organised Crime in Ukraine After Russia’s Invasion." LSE Policy Review, n.d. https://ppr.lse.ac.uk/articles/10.31389/lseppr.94#the-fighting-economy-drugs-guns-and-draft-dodgers.
Karmanaua, Yuras. "War Turns Ukraine into ‘Supermarket’ for Illegal Weapons." Associated Press, August 6, 2016. https://apnews.com/16ffe979bc2947ce9373079264232406/war-turns-ukraine-supermarket-illegal-weapons.
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, p. 15.
United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute. "The Conflict in Ukraine and Its Impact on Organized Crime and Security." United Nations, November 2022. https://unicri.it/sites/default/files/2022-11/The%20conflict%20in%20Ukraine%20and%20its%20impact%20on%20organized%20crime%20and%20security_0.pdf.
Zitser, Joshua. "Russia Has Been Sending Captured US Javelins and Stingers from Ukraine to Iran, Which May Be Able to Reverse-Engineer the Weapons: Report." Business Insider, March 10, 2023. https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-sending-us-weapons-captured-in-ukraine-to-iran-report-2023-3.
Hudson, John. "Weapons Transfers to Ukraine Raise Fear of Arms Smuggling." The Washington Post, May 4, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/05/14/ukraine-weapons-trafficking/.
Hinnant, Lori, and Nataliya Vasilyeva. "Frenchman Accused of Amassing Arsenal for Euro 2016 Attacks." Associated Press, 2016. https://apnews.com/195c258323384cad8af315d9e6f12981/ukraine-arrests-french-man-plotting-attacks-euro-2016.