European Union Arms Sales to Russia is Inexcusable
Arms sales to Russia wasn't stopped until April 8, 2022, 6 weeks after Russia's major invasion of Ukraine.
What did NATO and EU members think Russia was going to do with the weapons that they sold to Moscow?
NATO and the European Union (EU) are two venerable institutions which have lost their moral compass. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine didn’t mince words at the Munich Security Conference on February 19, 2022, 5 days before the Russian invasion, when he told the prominent attendees that the world security system has crashed due to the appeasement of Russia and the "selfishness [and] irresponsibility of states at the global level."
There is the ongoing failure of NATO to provide membership and sufficient support to Ukraine, and the failure of the EU to impose full sanctions on Russia. However, nothing screams “Moral Bankruptcy” louder than allowing member nations to sell arms and military equipment to Russia.
“The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them” is a quote perhaps erroneously attributed to Vladimir Lenin, but which is nevertheless apropos to current events. As Russia is an existential threat to Europe and the world, it is appalling that any member of NATO or the European Union would have sold arms to Russia at any time.
The EU Prioritized Economic Interests over Human Lives and Global Security
Arms sales from the EU to Russia are nothing new. Defence Industry Daily, in 2008, quoted Moscow Defence Review’s Sergey Denisentsev: “Few Western companies can boast of the same experience of broad and productive cooperation with Russian aerospace and defense enterprises as the Thales Group of France.”
Even after Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, and an embargo was imposed by the European Union, EU members continued to sell arms and military equipment to Russia. That revelation was first reported on March 14, 2022 by investigative journalists from Disclose. The expose provided an in-depth look at weapon systems sold by French defense firms Thales Group and Safran.
In order to provide subsequent EU arms sales to Russia with a thin patina of acceptability, the evasion of sanctions was accomplished through the use of an appalling loophole. As first reported by Disclose, the European Council – the legislative body of the EU – allowed members to continue selling arms to Russia if they already had a contract with Moscow. The loophole was contained within Article 2 Paragraph 4 of a European Council decision dated July 31, 2014, which states:
“The prohibitions in paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 shall be without prejudice to the execution of contracts or agreements concluded before 1 August 2014, and to the provision of spare parts and services necessary to the maintenance and safety of existing capabilities within the Union.”
In other words, even after Russia made its first incursion into Crimea in February 2014, EU members had an additional 5 months to sign new contracts with Russia for the sale of arms and military equipment!
Later media reports would reveal that there were ten EU nations that collectively continued to sell hundreds of millions of euros worth of arms and military equipment to Russia, even after the embargo was imposed.
Retired British Admiral Lord West of Spithead stated, according to The Telegraph, “Using loopholes to avoid the EU arms embargo of Russia post the Crimean invasion is effectively a crime and breathtakingly stupid.” Admiral West is a former First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff.
The Telegraph reported that armaments sold to Russia “included bombs, rockets, missiles and guns." All but one of those countries are also current NATO members. The article notes that “78 per cent of that total was supplied by German and French firms."
Jens Stoltenberg became NATO’s Secretary General in October 2014, seven months after Russia annexed Crimea, yet he failed to demand an end to those arms sales.
France Provided State-of-the-Art Military Technology and Equipment to Russia
The Ukrainian website Sundries provides multiple photographs of the Thales thermal imaging and range finder equipment for tanks, including one which lists the date of manufacture as June 2016 and stamped “Made in Russia”. An incredible 5 minute YouTube video from InfoCar, produced by Pavlo Kashchuk, is included within the article. The video is in Ukrainian with English subtitles, and shows the capabilities and damage caused by this French-designed military equipment.
It would appear that Thales, which is over 25% owned by the government of France, transferred technology and manufacturing processes for this thermal imaging and range finder equipment to Russia. It is not known whether this equipment is still being manufactured in Russia for installation in new tanks.
According to the website Defence-Blog.com, Thales advanced avionics were installed in SU-30 fighter jets delivered by Russia to Belarus. The combat aircraft were equipped with a “holographic Head-Up Display system for tactical situation analysis and map presentation.” The equipment and software “controls the navigation and attack system … to ensure mission success.”
At the end of the article, there is a link to a 55 second YouTube video from BoenTV of Belarus, which shows the SU-30 on the ground and in the air performing aerobatic maneuvers. The introduction on the YouTube page states, in Belarusian, that “In October [2020], the first pair of 12 planned Su-30SM fighter jets arrived at the air base in Baranovichi [Belarus].”
Disclose reported that Russian SU-30 fighter jets “which are sowing terror in the civilian population [of Ukraine], could well be among the 60 SU-30s that Thales has equipped with navigation systems (TACAN), and the latest cockpit display screens and viewfinders (SMD55S and Head up Display or HUD).”
Investigate Europe [3/17/2022] reported that in 2014, France was still authorizing shipments to Russia that included “chemical agents, biological agents, riot control agents, radioactive materials [and] related equipment.”
The EU finally stopped arms sales to Russia 6 weeks after the February 2022 Invasion
The EU loophole allowing arms sales to Russia wasn't closed until April 8, 2022, 6 weeks after Russia's major invasion of Ukraine. What’s more, it wasn’t closed because of a demand from NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg or European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, but as a result of press reports. The EU Council finally closed the loophole after “mounting protests from Baltic and eastern member states”, according to The Telegraph. Investigate Europe [4/29/2022] specifically credited Poland and Lithuania.
President von der Leyen has been at the helm of the EU since December 2019. Prior to that, she was Germany’s Minister of Defence from December 2013 (two months before the start of Russia’s armed invasion and annexation of Crimea) to July 2019. Ironically, according to Politico and other sources, she is on the short list of candidates proposed for replacing Mr. Stoltenberg as the next Secretary General of NATO.
NATO failed to provide any protection to Ukraine
On January 24, 2022, Mr. Stoltenberg announced to the world that NATO was increasing protection to members, and implied by omission that Ukraine was not going to be under the NATO umbrella – effectively throwing Ukraine to the Russian wolves.
On that date, The New York Times reported online that Mr. Stoltenberg “said in a statement that NATO would ‘continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance’.” The article also reported that “There was no indication in NATO’s statement on Monday that any additional forces deployed in Central, Eastern or Southern Europe would be used to support Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, in the event of a Russian invasion.”
On February 24, 2022, exactly one month after NATO’s announcement, Russia invaded Ukraine.