Ukraine urges control of arms deliveries amid smuggling concerns

• Brussels concerned about arms being smuggled out of war-torn Ukraine to arm European criminal gangs.
• EU creating hub in Moldova to fight arms smuggling from Ukraine to Moldova.
• Kyiv says it closely monitors the weapons it receives from Western partners.

A Ukraine presidential aide on Thursday urged lawmakers to form a monitoring committee to oversee weapons received by Ukraine from Western allies in response to Russia’s invasion.

The proposal comes after Brussels expressed concern about the threat of arms being smuggled out of war-torn Ukraine to arm European criminal gangs.

“Parliament, as a legislative power, should be involved in the control of Allied defense assistance. Our goal is to be as transparent as possible under martial law,” the head of the Ukrainian presidency Andriy Yermak said on Telegram.

He said all arms supplied by the West are “registered and sent to the front of the war”.

The monitoring committee would “deal with the preparation and consideration of issues related to the control of the use of weapons received from our partners,” Yermak said.

“Transparency is the best recipe against Russian manipulation and fakes,” he added.

This week, the European Union said it was creating a hub in Moldova to battle organized crime, particularly arms smuggling from neighboring Ukraine.

Kyiv has said it closely monitors the weapons it receives from Western partners and that oversight of those deliveries was a “priority” for the government.

It has also accused Russia of spreading disinformation about the spread of illegal weapons smuggling.

Since 2014, when Moscow-backed rebels broke away from Kyiv in two eastern statelets, sparking an armed conflict with Ukraine’s army, small arms have become increasingly available in Ukraine.

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