Hendrajit, Geopolitics Expert and Executive Director of Global Future Institute (GFI)
Paper presented at Padjadjaran University (UNPAD) Model United Nations 2018, on 7 May 2018.
In short, the economic crisis facing the Ukrainian government as well the separation of Ukraine from Russia, has undermined the quality of its military industry. By implication, Ukraine proved to have bad reputation as the exporter and supplier of military equipment as well as arms trade.
But it is just one part of the story. The other story related to its another reputation, selling the arms to another countries. Especially the countries facing the conflict at the massive scale and full of political instability. And those countries which have bad reputation in the violation of human right/
Under such circumstances, those countries classified as the violators of human right, have the difficulty of buying the military equipment and arms from countries of West Europe or US. Beucase US as well as West Europe countries have tight political requirements if they want to sell its military equipments and arms to the developing countries in Asia, Africa or Latin America.
Realizing the the tight requirements related to politics rather than purely business based, Ukraine use this momentum by playing as the exporter of military equipment and arms. Ukraine acted as the suppliers of arms and military equipments taking over the vacuum of the market within the countries facing civil wars, political instability, and violation of human right.
Africa is a leaving example where Ukraine played its role as the exporter and arms suppliers to the East Africa. A research conducted by Organized Crime Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) uncovered that several armored fighting vehicle of 4,1 US dollar was bought from Poland in East Europe.
But Poland, as one of the NATO members, is committed to the agreement and tight political requirements as mentioned above. Thus, half of the armored fighting vehicle were sent to Ukraine. It was Ukraine which exported the armored fihting vehicle to East Africa through Uni Emirat Arab.
In other words, Ukraine played a role as the Weapons Laundering Scheme. Thus it would be unable to detect the route and the real country that imported arms and military equipment.
To uncover the way the Weapons Laundering Schme works In Ukraine, it can be seen through the role played by Techimpex Ukraina. Several armored fighting vehicle produced by Poland BRDM-2s, officially was ordered and bought by Techimpex. Techimpex bought 2014, Techimpex bought 59 BRDM-2s dan BRDM-2RHs, including machine gun from a company named Army Trade.
In February 2015, the owner of Army Trade named Krzysztof Jozwik informed that his company has 59 armored fighting vehicle available. Interestingly, he did not mention the spare parts of the armored vehicle.
In April 2015, SSEC gave the green light to Techimpex for importing the spare parts of armored vehicle from Poland for its company purpose. In December 2015, the shipment began. Thus, on the basis of this agreement, Techimpex was the end user. Thus unable to exported to another countries.
But in reality, on 11 December 2015, a day before the armored vehicle BRDM-2s en route to Ukraine, Techimpex signed contract of 776.000 US dollar with Ukrimash, to expor 8 armored vehicle to Uganda. In other words, the last destination of the process was Uganda in Africa.
In Februari 2016, Techimpex again signed the contract with Ukrimash, for exporting 37 armored vehicle to Uganda. Also in February, Ukrimash ordered the additional 14 armored vehicle BRDM-2s to Burundi, in Africa.
But in reality, Burundi was not the last destination, but to a company in Uni Emirat Arab named International Golden Group (IGG). And then in May and June 2016, the additional 14 armored vehicle were sent to Uganda.
Thus, this the story at glance about the bad reputation of Ukraine as the exporter and arms suppliers and military equipment.
