DISINFO: NATO to deliver arms to Kyiv under guise of Sea Breeze war games
SUMMARY
NATO will covertly provide Ukraine with sophisticated weapons during Sea Breeze manoeuvres, which will be later handed over to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and national battalions in Donbas.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring disinformation narrative claiming that NATO supplies Ukraine with weapons secretly and in circumvention of international law. Such messages also imply that NATO-Ukraine joint war games threaten Russia's security and serve as a justification of its military build-up along Ukraine’s border.
In reality, several American and Ukrainian officials denied knowledge of any new weapons transfers beyond existing US financial support and previously announced arms shipments. Ukraine also imports weapons and/or military equipment from other countries, including Turkey, Great Britain, Poland, France and Bulgaria. All transactions are concluded in full compliance with international law and trade agreements. However, Kyiv does not receive any weaponry under the guise of joint military exercises.
Ukraine as a sovereign and independent state has every right to join any military or political alliances it wants and seal deals with whomever it wants. Before Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and its further aggression in Donbas in 2014, all polls were showing that much less than half the population were in favour of Ukraine’s membership of NATO, while 62 per cent of Ukrainians approve of it now. Ukraine enshrined its future membership of NATO and the European Union in its Constitution in 2019.
Unlike the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who receive foreign military and technical aid transparently, the Kremlin-backed separatists in Donbas get Russian weapons and other military equipment in a clandestine manner. Russia denies the fact that it supplies them with weaponry, but there is enough evidence of Russian illegal military supplies to its proxies in Donbas.
See more similar narratives about NATO’s alleged presence in Donbas and the West’s attempts to provoke Ukraine into war with Russia.