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It is at best, deeply irresponsible for CBS and Amnesty to make these claims without rigorous evidence. This mirrors a lot of unsupported rumor I hear primarily from those without a background on Ukraine.
If there was evidence of this, it absolutely deserves to be reported. At this point, I’ve not heard anything beyond general statements from those that appear unfamiliar w the transfer process, Ukraine’s political economy, or UA armed forces / MoD
My basis for this: extensive work on defense sector corruption in Ukraine pre and post-2014, including illicit arms transfers. Those historical cases that I and my colleagues investigated were always supported by extensive documentary evidence.
I can tell you what that looked like, and it was not the “warlords controlling lawless regions” narrative referred to here, which mirrors a lot of Russian propaganda that appeals to decades of US experience and let’s be honest, trauma.
Rather, it was a mixture of small arms and ammunition circulated from the front (the largest reports of which are highly suspect, and not given credence by organizations including HRW and other international orgs) …
And sales - which often fell through - of legacy systems by individuals in defense enterprises. On the other hand, examples of Western-provided weapons appearing outside of Ukraine have been highly exceptional.
This isn’t a matter of being pro-Russian or pro-Ukrainian either. The specter of arms being diverted from Russian military and paramilitary forces has been inflated as well.
If there is evidence particularly of more advanced systems being diverted, Amnesty and others should absolutely report on it. They have done a spectacular job on this before amnesty.org
I would also note that many of the largest cases of illicit transfers of arms involving Ukraine historically have involved a Russia nexus, often being driven by Russia-based networks occrp.org
As was the case with the widely circulated incorrect identification of a Russian soldier who tortured and killed a Ukrainian prisoner recently: look at all evidence with a critical eye, question your biases, be skeptical of any conclusion that seems too neat.
And remember recent history: recall many of the breathless reports that implied that after the fall of Kabul, we would be facing non-state armed groups armed with advanced U.S. systems and that adversaries would reverse engineer US advanced tech?
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