Incidents

Ukraine has become one of the main importers of weapons in the world - SIRPI (infographics)

If, in the period 2014-2018, weapons import was only 0. 1% in the world, then 2019-2023 showed an increase of 6633%. The Russian-Ukrainian war has a significant impact on world trade in weapons. European countries have almost doubled the import of weapons. This is stated in the new study of the Stockholm International Institute for Peace Problems. Analysts have explored weapons markets between 2014 and 2023.

For the last four years, much more weapons have been produced by Asia, the Middle East and Oceania. In these regions are the 9 out of the 10 largest importers of weapons. Russian exports have halved during these periods, but it remains in the top 3 of the largest exporters of weapons giving way to France and the United States. In Europe, Ukraine became the largest importer of weapons between 2019 and 2023. The increase was 6633%. Ukraine supplies weapons at least 30 countries.

Also in Europe, a surge in demand for air defense systems through a rocket campaign of the Russian Federation in Ukraine. In the world dimension, the largest importer of weapons is India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Ukraine and Pakistan. Analysts say that the United States managed to increase weapons exports by 17% between 2014-2018 and 2019-2023, and the share in world export reached 42%.

If we take the US and all Western Europe, they control 72% of the total exports of weapons in 2019-2023 compared to 62% in 2014-2018. France was also able to increase exports by 47% between 2014-2018 and 2019-2023. The country became the second largest weapon exporter for the first time. Most of Paris sent weapons in the country of Asia and Ocean - 42%, another 34% went to the Middle East. India received most of French weapons.

Russian exports fell by 53% between the periods of 2014-2018 and 2019-2023. For the last 5 years, Russian exports have been declining especially rapidly. If in 2019 the Russian Federation supplied weapons to 31 countries, then in 2023 only 12. The largest buyer of weapons remains Asia and Oceania - 68%, among which 34%were India and China - 21%. We will remind, on December 27 the media wrote that exports of German weapons grew to record volumes through supply to Ukraine.