Thousands of units of confiscated Iranian weapons can be sent to Ukraine - WSJ
6 million ammunition for small arms, a small number of anti -tank missiles and more than 7,000 blasts removed from the Yemen from the coast of smugglers suspected of work on Iran. It is reported that this week, the United States and NATO allies met in Brussels in Ramstein format to discuss new ways to accelerate weapons supply to Ukraine and a shortage of military supplies that the war creates. "The war in Ukraine consumes a huge amount of ammunition and depletes allies.
The current level of Ukraine's expenditures for ammunition is many times higher than our current production rates. This puts our defense industry in a difficult situation," said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. According to the Pentagon, this week the United States has supplied more than 100 million rounds for small arms. It is noted that there are difficulties in the legal plane for the transfer of confiscated weapons to Ukraine.
Currently, US Presidential Administration, Joe Baiden, is looking for a legal justification for removing weapons from one conflict and transferring it to another. The UN embargo on weapons supply requires the US and their allies to destroy, retain or get rid of the removed weapons. According to US officials, Baiden's administration lawyers have studied the question of whether the resolution creates some freedom of action to transfer weapons to Ukraine.
Proponents of this idea say that Biden President can resolve this legal issue by preparing a decree or working with Congress to authorize the United States to confiscate weapons within civil confiscation and send it to Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal writes that rifles and ammunition have been seized in recent months by the United States and France within the limits of global efforts to prevent Iran's smuggling weapons in Yemen.
The Tehran Allies from the Huti Movement are running an eight -year war against a government supported by Saudi Arabia, which was displaced from the capital in 2014. Usually, these weapons are removed and destroyed by the United States and their allies, which ensure the UN embargo on weapons to Yemen. But US officials have stated that global efforts to supply Ukraine have arisen have caused a debate on the departure of confiscated military property to Kiev.
US military officials began to seriously consider this idea at the end of last year after the US Navy seized a million rounds on board a fishing vessel that went from Iran to Yemen, officials said. A few weeks later, the US military seized more than 2,000 AK-47 machines from a small fishing vessel in the Gulf of Oman. In mid -January, French troops discovered 3,000 machines, almost 600,000 ammunition and more than 20 anti -tank missiles on board another fishing vessel in the Gulf of Oman.
According to US officials, the departure of weapons intended for Iran forces in Yemen, the Kiev government will allow America to put pressure on Iran, which has provided Russia with hundreds of Dronov-Kamikadze, which are used to attack civilian population in Ukraine. "It is a signal to take a weapon intended for weapons of Iran's proxy and turn it to achieve our priorities in Ukraine, where Iran is supplying Russia's weapons," one of US officials said.
We will remind, on February 12, the journalists of The Guardian found out how a party of 18 combat drones came from Iran to Russia. Correspondents learned from their sources in Tehran that ships and Iranian state airlines were used to send unmanned vehicles. Earlier, Focus translated the article by Stein Mitzer and Yusta Yasta, dedicated to the Catherine Navy of the Yemeni Hussites, who managed to create a military arsenal that exceeds the possibilities of many major nation -states.