Comercio de armas

Paramilitary policeman training in Chuzhou, China, March 2016. Reuters

MundoAsia,

Shortly after Russia’s annual military expo concluded in August, Alexander Mikheyev, the head of the country’s state arms export agency, predicted that revenues from Russian arms exports in 2022 would be down 26 percent from last year. Russia remains the world’s second-largest arms exporter after the United States, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute; it would take a far larger drop in revenues to change that. But it has become clear that since Moscow’s disastrous decision to invade Ukraine in February, the Russian military’s need to replace its own equipment, U.S.-led sanctions, and buyers’ concerns about Russian equipment’s performance on the battlefield have reduced Russia’s ability to export weapons.…  Seguir leyendo »

Examining a Russian T-90 tank at the Russian Arms Expo in Nizhny Tagil, Russia, September 2013. Sergei Karpukhin / Reuters

EuropaMundoOriente Próximo,

Now in its sixth month, Russia’s assault on Ukraine has become an unrelenting war of attrition. The Russian military has suffered as many as 80,000 casualties, according to Pentagon estimates, and it has lost hundreds of planes, tanks, and armored vehicles. The longer the war continues, the more challenging the situation will be for Russia’s defense industrial base, which is being targeted by unprecedented Western sanctions and export controls. Although their full impact may not be evident now, these strains are likely to have long-term implications for Russia’s ability to project power abroad, especially in the Middle East. Moscow has long competed with the United States and Europe as a major supplier of advanced weapons and spare parts to Arab governments.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Turkish TB2 Bayraktar drone at a Ukrainian military parade, Kyiv, August 2021. Gleb Garanich / Reuters

Europa, , , , ,

On April 14, Ukrainian forces stunned the world when they sank the Moskva, the heavily armed cruiser that was the flagship of Moscow’s Black Sea fleet. As widely noted in the international press, the Ukrainians succeeded in hitting the ship with their homegrown Neptune missiles, despite the ship’s significant defenses. What has been somewhat less noted, however, were the foreign-made drones that enabled this remarkable attack: according to Ukrainian officials, the strike was coordinated by a pair of Turkish Bayraktar TB2 unmanned drones, which were able to evade the ship’s radar and which provided precise targeting information for the missiles.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalONU

A lo largo de todo este mes de julio, en la sede de Naciones Unidas en Nueva York se está discutiendo el Tratado sobre el Comercio de Armas, una iniciativa surgida hace años de la sociedad civil internacional, y que por primera vez intentará regular una actividad siempre polémica en la que muchos Estados se comportan de forma irresponsable. En la Unión Europea disponemos ya de un instrumento, el Código de Conducta, que aunque no es de obligado cumplimiento, establece el marco regulador de las transacciones de armamento de los países miembros, y que ha sido de utilidad desde su implementación.…  Seguir leyendo »