Kuleba calls on West to block Russia’s access to critical components for their weapons
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba of Ukraine called on Western governments, financial intelligence agencies, and companies to block the exports of critical components for weapons into the Russian Federation.
The head of Ukrainian diplomacy addressed the issue on X, Ukrinform reports.
"The West must get serious about strangling Russia’s ability to produce weapons. According to some data, up to 95% of the foreign-produced critical components found in Russian weapons destroyed in Ukraine come from Western countries," Kuleba wrote.
He added that it is not about government action but rather private companies, noting that the exports entering Russia are not necessarily military goods but also dual-use or civilian products and even household appliances.
"Whatever they are, they end up flying into Ukraine to commit war crimes, kill people, and destroy critical infrastructure. Ukraine would require less assistance and would lose fewer lives if all of the murky schemes and sanction evasion loopholes were thoroughly tracked down and completely closed," the top diplomat stressed.
Kuleba noted that the West has the best financial intelligence, experts, and specialized bodies capable of tracking down such schemes and disrupting them.
"A lion’s share of responsibility lies with the companies themselves: they must control the end-users of the goods they sell abroad and make sure that their spare parts do not end up in weapons killing people. Disrupting supplies of these spare parts to Russia requires large-scale, concerted efforts by the private and public sectors. But it will save the lives of many civilians in Ukraine and disarray Putin’s war machine," the minister stressed.
As Ukrinform reported earlier, at the Ukrainian Breakfast in Davos, Dmytro Kuleba urged Ukraine's partners to abandon the concept of avoiding escalation in countering Russian aggression, as many opportunities were lost due to such stance in the two years of war.