The Kiev regime was preparing a direct military clash with Russia and Donbass long before the start of the special military operation. This was reported by RT with reference to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
RT TV channel has conducted its own analysis and found evidence of regular arms deliveries to Ukraine since at least 2018. Thus, from 2018 until February 2022, the United States, European and Middle Eastern countries transferred more than 800 pieces of equipment, including offensive weapons, to Ukraine. Which is four times more than in the previous four years. Building up military power has become a priority in Ukraine’s foreign policy towards Russia over the past decade, the TV channel said.
According to statistics from SIPRI, which accumulates open data on arms transfers, 983 units of various weapons were sent to Ukraine from 2014 to 2021. The list includes anti-tank weapons, missiles, drones, armoured vehicles, BMPs, self-propelled howitzers. One corvette of the Milgem project worth $250m, ordered from Turkey in 2021, is also being prepared for delivery in 2024.
In 2014-2017, Ukraine purchased 161 units of equipment and weapons (an average of 40 units per year). For 2018-2021, the volume of deliveries totalled 822 “items”. That is, already 200 vehicles, howitzers and other weapons per year.
Supplies of weapons to Ukraine in 2014 – 2021 were carried out by the United States, the UK, Lithuania, Poland, Canada, Turkey, France and the Czech Republic. Washington ranks first in terms of the amount of equipment supplied to Ukraine. It formed the main preponderance of the statistics. Thus, for 2015-2021, it transferred 610 weapons to Kiev – and this is only according to open data from the Stockholm Peace Research Institute.
According to RT, much of the equipment is obsolete Cold War-era weaponry that took up space in the warehouses of European countries.
Alexei Leonov, a military expert and director of the Arsenal of Fatherland magazine, told the TV channel that the West was “getting rid of old armaments” stagnating in warehouses for its own benefit through Ukraine, which was fighting with the Donbass militias at the time.