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Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the results of the UN Security Council meeting dedicated to countering the illicit and unregulated export of weapons and military equipment, held within the framework of the Russian Federation's presidency

11 April 2023 21:13
680-11-04-2023

On April 10, the UN Нeadquarters in New York hosted the first central event under the Russian Security Council presidency: the open debate on the risks posed by the violation of obligations with regard to interstate supplies of military and double-purpose products. The discussion showed that the Russian Federation's approaches to this issue were shared by many UN member states from among its allies, countries that have traditionally been its partners and shared its ideology, primarily Belarus, China, India, Iran, Brazil, and a number of other Asian, African, and Latin American countries. In particular, the focus in this context was on the need for states to strictly comply with their political and legal obligations under the main international and regional instruments on controlling military products: the UN Register of Conventional Arms, the UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons (PoA), the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), and the EU Common Position on Arms Export Controls defining common rules governing control of exports of military technology and equipment.

The first two instruments define the main principles regulating international defence cooperation, including transparency and trust in interaction in this area; a reliable closure of channels where light and small arms (LSA) can flow to the shadow sector through imposing state control over LSA turnover throughout their life cycle; counteracting LSA manufacture under expired licenses or no licenses at all; regulating arms brokerage activity; strictly complying with the end user certification rules; preventing unauthorised LSA re-exports.

As far as the Arms Trade Treaty and the EU Common Position are concerned, they directly ban conventional arms and ammunition transfers, if it is known for a fact that this military materiel will be used to perpetrate acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, serious violations of the 1949 Geneva conventions, attacks on civilian facilities, and other war crimes. In addition, these international agreements disallow the issue of arms export licenses, if the arms in question will facilitate the emergence or aggravation of armed conflicts in the territory of a recipient country.

We must state with regret that the three Western permanent members of the UN Security Council again indulged in their usual anti-Russian rhetoric and ungrounded accusations regarding the Ukraine crisis they had themselves engineered with support from their Euro-Atlantic allies. Thus, contrary to the constructive approach demonstrated by the majority of the UN Security Council members and delegations from other UN member states which joined the debate, the detailed and quite professional discussion that came under way degenerated into irresponsible political demagoguery intended to further discredit the Russian Federation and other nations that are still able to hold their ground in the face of the collective West's neocolonial ambitions.