Russia ‘using weapons smuggled by Iran from Iraq against Ukraine’
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Russia ‘using weapons smuggled by Iran from Iraq against Ukraine’
The Guardian- April 12th 2022
Russia is receiving munitions and military hardware sourced from Iraq for its war effort in Ukraine with the help of Iranian weapons smuggling networks, according to members of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias and regional intelligence services with knowledge of the process.
RPGs and anti-tank missiles, as well as Brazilian-designed rocket launcher systems, have been dispatched to Russia from Iraq as Moscow’s campaign has faltered in the last month, the Guardian has learned.
An Iranian-made Bavar 373 missile system, similar to the Russian S-300, has also been donated to Moscow by the authorities in Tehran, who also returned an S-300, according to a source who helped organise the transport.
Using the weapons-trafficking underworld would signal a dramatic shift in Russian strategy, as Moscow is forced to lean on Iran, its military ally in Syria, following new sanctions triggered by the invasion of Ukraine.
The developments also have huge implications for the direction and volume of trade in the international weapons trafficking business.
Iraq has hosted US and western troops since the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and the US has trained and supplied various Iraqi army and special forces units to defend the Baghdad government against insurgencies. After two decades of war, the country is awash with weaponry.
Much of it has passed legally into the hands of Iran-backed Shia militias, which are opposed to the US presence in the country, but since 2016 have been officially incorporated into the Iraqi armed forces as part of the fight against Islamic State.
Known for their efficiency in dismantling Islamic State’s “caliphate” – and for their brutal treatment of Sunni civilians – these groups have become powerful actors in Iraq’s security establishment.
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