Clearly, the disinformation campaign pursues specific goals, LB.ua wrote.
First, it is used to show European partners that "while Europe subjects Russian companies to sanctions, Ukraine continues to sell its output to the Russian Federation."
Second, to show Ukrainians that their "state, instead of sending arms to the front line, sells it to the aggressor state".
Third, to undermine Ukraine's position on the international arms market because the SIPRI report makes it clear that Ukraine is putting up competition to Russia here.
Read alsoUkroboronprom to reshuffle quarter of CEOs of military-industrial enterprisesFourth, the Russian leadership, which organized yet another information attack against Ukraine, is thus trying to cover not only its failures on the global market but also its crimes in Donbas.
Read alsoRussia supplies tanks, missiles to "LPR-DPR" – SIPRISome media juggled the data contained in the SIPRI report to allege that Ukraine's largest arms producers continue trading with Russia, which, according to the report, is the second biggest importer of Ukrainian military products.
Indeed, the exporters rating clearly shows that the share of Ukrainian arms on the Russian market is around 17% and thus, Russia ranks second among customers for Ukrainian arms.
Or that is how certain media interpreted the report.
The SIPRI's report covers a five-year period (from 2012 to 2016), not the last year exclusively. Indeed, Ukraine supplied military-purpose goods to Russia, but it did so back during Viktor Yanukovych's rule. For example, on May 7, 2012, Ukrainian state-owned enterprises were unexpectedly included in Russia's plan of the modernization of their defense industry. Apparently, the Kremlin had no doubts back then that it would soon gulp down the Ukrainian state to restore the old empire together with its system of military cooperation.
Read alsoUkroboronprom develops new type of missiles for military aircraft – PoroshenkoHowever in 2014, after the Kremlin launched aggression against Ukraine and after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed decree No. 691 "On measures to advance state military and technical policy," Ukrainian state-owned companies stopped supplying military-purpose and dual-purpose goods to Russia.
To see that exports to Russia stopped, it is enough to look at the data of the State Export Control Service which SIPRI receives each year.
In particular, the report for 2015, unlike in the previous years, does not contain any information about Ukrainian arms supplies to the Russian Federation. At the same time, Ukrainian-made military-purpose goods were in greater demand in other regions of the world.
Read alsoUkroboronprom strikes several deals at UAE's IDEX 2017It is obvious that in the past two years, Ukraine (the information contained in the SIPRI report) could diversify arms supplies, having abandoned the Russian market.
In 2016, the state-owned enterprise Ukroboronprom managed to sign 25 per cent more export contracts than in 2015. "Over the past year, we have exported equipment worth $750 million, which is 25% more than a year earlier," the company's deputy director, Denys Hurak, said.
Read alsoUkraine okays state defense order for 2017-2019Indeed, SIPRI published factual information on contracts worth $169 million between Ukraine and Russia, which were allegedly signed in 2016. Hardly did anyone pay attention to a note in small font in a memo to these contracts: it wrote that all supplies were halted back in 2014. But in most cases, the deadline for arms supplies was clearly indicated as 2016.
Read alsoUkrainian Army orders Dozor-B armored vehicles from UkroboronpormIt turns out that figures for the past year include the remaining cost of procurement contracts suspended in 2014 which were not implemented.
The SIPRI methodology allows for changes to arms flows to be tracked and their geographical distribution to be determined. But overall, the data collected by this system, by and large, differs from official statistics.
