Ukraine is the 3rd largest arms importer in the world

The Russian invasion has caused a huge flow of military aid to Ukraine, so much so that the country will become the world’s third largest arms importer by 2022, a media institution reported Monday. Swedish research.

The Stockholm Peace Research Institute, known by its acronym SIPRI, reported that from 1991, when Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union, until 2021, the country imported few weapons .

But the Russian invasion of February 24 last year changed that dramatically. Only Qatar – which has significantly increased its arms purchases in recent years – and India imported more weapons in 2022, according to the SIPRI report.

Pieter Wezeman, a researcher at SIPRI, noted that although arms deliveries fell sharply last year, “those destined for Europe rose sharply due to tensions between Russia and most European states”. to the Russian invasion. He added that European countries want to import more weapons and “faster”.

SIPRI said the United States and Russia remain the world’s largest arms exporters, as they have been for the past three decades.

However, the gap between the United States and Russia has widened considerably, while the gap between Russia and the second largest exporter, France, has narrowed. The institute predicted that Russian exports will continue to decline because Russia will want to prioritize supplying its own forces amid war and weak global demand due to economic sanctions against Moscow.

SIPRI data shows that US arms exports increased by 14% between the 2013-2017 and 2018-2022 periods, with Washington accounting for 40% of global arms exports between 2018-2022.

At the same time, Russian arms exports fell by 31% between the two periods, its share in world exports falling from 22% to 16%, while that of France fell from 7.1% to 11%.

SIPRI, created in 1966, is an independent international institute dedicated to the investigation of conflicts, armaments, arms control and disarmament processes.