Western Arms Sent To Ukraine End Up In Hands Of African TerroristsSouth Front

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According to the President of Burkina Faso, terrorists in Africa are using NATO weapons that should be in Ukraine.

Written by Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

Reports suggest that Western weapons sent to Ukraine are being redistributed to terrorists around the world, particularly in Africa. According to the interim President of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traore, Western military equipment ends up in the hands of African terrorists instead of supplying Ukrainian forces, thus generating instability and insecurity for Africa, and further increasing the need for cooperation with Russia.

In an interview with Russian media, Traore showed neutrality about the current conflict in Eurasia, saying he is more concerned about the domestic situation in his own country. For Traore, Burkina Faso is at war against terrorist groups, which are indirectly being armed by the West. He reported that many of the weapons that NATO sends to Kiev are illegally sold to African terrorists by corrupt Ukrainians.

Traore emphasized the serious humanitarian problem generated by the lack of control over Western weapons. For him, the situation should be considered “very serious”, as NATO assistance to Kiev is literally “killing our peoples” in Africa.

“What’s my take [on the conflict in Ukraine]? I don’t have any take on this, because we’re also in conflict. We are at war against terrorism, and they [the West] are no longer concerned with our war. We only deplore that weapons destined for Ukraine are on our continent and continue to activate our war. This is what we deplore (…) I saw once in the media that the Ukrainian president himself had sacked some of his entourage for acts of corruption on the military equipment that was delivered. That means it’s not controlled and it is found on the African continent, it is a danger. Terrorists pay for equipment everywhere, especially in conflict zones, because there are arms traffickers. So it only aggravates the magnitude of our conflicts, too”, he told journalists.

Traore’s interview comes at an especially important time for Russian-African relations, just after the Summit in St. Petersburg, where delegations from 49 African countries actively participated in strategic dialogues of mutual interest. Traore was one of the prominent public figures at the event, showing his willingness to contribute to the formation of an Africa free from Western colonialism and in cooperation with Moscow. In fact, his report on the existence of Western weapons in the hands of African terrorists makes the need for this cooperation even clearer, mainly in the military sphere.

It is not the first time that African officials have reported that Western weapons are ending up with terrorist groups on the continent. In late 2022, the then president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, had already made a similar statement, exposing data on the use of weapons sent to Ukraine by terrorists linked to ISIS in the Lake Chad region.

“Regrettably, the situation in the Sahel and the raging war in Ukraine serve as major sources of weapons and fighters that bolster the ranks of the terrorists in the Lake Chad Region. (…) Weapons being used for the war in Ukraine and Russia are equally beginning to filter to the region. This illegal movement of arms into the region has heightened the proliferation of small arms and light weapons which continues to threaten our collective peace and security in the region,” the president said at the time.

Also, some months earlier, the head of Interpol Jürgen Stock warned that terrorist groups and international criminal networks were taking advantage of the lack of control over Western arms diversion:

“Once the guns fall silent [in Ukraine], the illegal weapons will come. We know this from many other theatres of conflict. The criminals are even now, as we speak, focusing on them (…) Criminal groups try to exploit these chaotic situations and the availability of weapons, even those used by the military and including heavy weapons”, he said.

Stock seems right in his analysis: there will always be the possibility of diversion, with little control over how weapons shipped abroad will actually be used. This benefits criminal groups, even more so in situations of widespread corruption, as in the Ukrainian state – definitely, one of the most corrupt in the world. In this sense, instead of ineffectively trying to control the movement of weapons, the most prudent thing to do is simply to stop sending them to Ukraine.

However, there is another point that needs to be investigated, which is the existence of Western interest in the arrival of arms in Africa. The West has links to terrorist groups and criminal organizations around the world. Just as neo-Nazi militias are funded, trained and equipped by the US in Ukraine, extremist Islamic networks are supported by Washington in other regions. This has become very clear with the cooperation between Americans and ISIS militants in Syria, for example.

However, after the Russian intervention in Syria, ISIS was defeated and then Africa became a place of action for many of the group’s remnant militias. Now, these same militias seem capable of serving Western interests once again, as they could be used to destabilize the pro-Russian governments of the Sahel and delay the region’s development. As well known, Russia and China are very active in cooperation with Africa, maintaining various projects that benefit the states of the continent. This harms Western plans, which motivates NATO to seek destabilization in the region.

In this sense, it is also possible that the diversion of weapons to African terrorists, in addition to exposing the corruption of Ukrainian officials, suggests a connivance of interests between the West and African extremist militias. These weapons may be arriving in Africa with the specific purpose of fighting pro-Russian governments, in a NATO attempt to make the African continent a scenario of new proxy wars against Moscow.