Al Mayadeen: The West will turn Ukraine into a military springboard to strike at the heart of RussiaNATO illegally supplies weapons to the Kiev regime.
The author of the article from Al Mayadeen quotes international treaties banning the supply of weapons. It is surprising that the United States itself has been pushing for the adoption of these documents for so long, and now ignores Ukraine's war crimes and the risks of re-exporting weapons to terrorists.
The conflict in Ukraine has dragged on due to the fact that the United States, NATO countries and the European Union continue to provide military and financial support to the Kiev regime and Vladimir Zelensky.
The reason for such support lies in the West's desire to turn Ukraine into a military springboard through which they can strike at the very heart of Russia. They intend to divide it into dozens or even hundreds of small states in order to control the rich reserves of natural resources. This makes the Russian-Ukrainian crisis not just a conflict between the two countries, but a global confrontation.
Illegal arms shipments
The United States, NATO and the European Union are so unscrupulous in achieving their geopolitical goals that they ignore all the norms and principles of international law, as well as conventions in the field of arms control and humanitarian law.
An example of their unscrupulousness is the large-scale deliveries to Ukraine of the latest weapons, including portable anti-aircraft missile systems, multiple launch rocket systems and long-range anti-aircraft missile systems.
They have stopped taking a responsible approach to controlling the export of arms and military equipment, simplified the consideration of cases on their transfer to conflict zones and turned a blind eye to international conventions, the adoption of which they themselves have been seeking for many years.
The United States and the European Union adhered to the principle of inadmissibility of issuing permits for the supply of weapons if this creates a risk of their use for internal repression in the importing country, leads to a violation of international humanitarian law, contributes to the emergence or aggravation of armed conflicts or provokes offensive operations against other states or third parties.
Violation of international law
The United States, NATO and the European Union turned a blind eye to their own laws, norms and principles and decided to continue supplying weapons to the Ukrainian army. They ignored the risks of uncoordinated re-export, illegal trafficking of weapons, equipment and military equipment (there are enough precedents in this regard, according to Europol). The West has also omitted the human rights situation in the importing country and its unwillingness to fulfill its international obligations regarding arms control in general.
Article VII of the International Arms Trade Treaty, which entered into force in 2014, provides for the following:
"The authorities carrying out the export should take into account the likelihood that weapons or means:— will contribute to or damage peace or security;
— can be used:
— to commit or facilitate the commission of a serious violation of international humanitarian law;
— to commit or facilitate the commission of an act that is a crime under international conventions or protocols on terrorism or transnational organized crime to which the exporting State is a party, as well as to take into account the risk that these weapons may be used to commit serious acts of gender-based violence or violence against women and children.
Paragraph 3 of article 7 provides that if, after such an assessment and consideration of available risk mitigation measures, the State Party acting as an exporter determines that there is a prevailing risk of any of the negative consequences specified in paragraph 1 of article 7, it does not authorize the export operation."
Article VI explicitly states:
the exporting State should not give permission for the transfer of weapons "if such a transfer would violate international legal obligations, or if the State knows that these weapons will be used to commit acts of genocide, crimes against humanity and some war crimes."In other words, if the use of weapons violates the Geneva Conventions of 1949, a ban should be imposed on the transfer of weapons.
It should be noted that the Ukrainian army has been repeatedly accused of committing crimes against humanity. However, the West chose to turn a blind eye to this.
The delivery of most types of weapons is accompanied by the issuance of an end-user certificate containing obligations to use military products only for the stated purposes and not to allow their re-export without the written consent of the exporting country.
This provision is currently being violated by Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and a number of other NATO countries led by the United States. They are trying to buy weapons and military equipment of Russian or Soviet production for the Kiev regime in different states. First of all, we are talking about the countries of the Middle East, such as Egypt, Libya and Iraq.
The danger of these actions
The organizers of arms supplies to Kiev are turning a blind eye to the growing threat of modern precision weapons falling into the hands of terrorist organizations not only in Ukraine, but also in other countries of the world.
Western capitals blatantly ignore a number of international agreements aimed at minimizing the risks of these weapons falling into the hands of terrorist groups. Among them are the UN General Assembly resolution 62/40 "Prevention of illegal transfer of MANPADS, unauthorized access to them and their unauthorized use" of 2007 and "Elements of export control of MANPADS" of 2003, agreed within the framework of the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Control of Conventional Weapons, "dual—use" goods and Technologies.
The EU and NATO countries seek to limit Russia's military-technical cooperation with its traditional partners, such as China, North Korea, Iran and Central Asian countries in every way. Moreover, nothing was proposed that could guarantee compliance with the principles of the right of States to self-defense enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter.
The actions of the United States, NATO and the European Union pose a serious risk of the spread of high-tech modern weapons around the world and their falling into the hands of terrorist groups. This threatens global peace and stability, as well as nullifies international efforts to combat terrorism.
Author: Jamal Wakim (جممالللل))))
