Emmanuel Macron ‘has a lot to answer for’ as arms sales by EU27 to Russia released

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Using data obtained from the COARM database of the ‘European External Action Service’ (EEAS) of the EU Commission, Facts4EU.Org revealed the staggering amount of the EU27’s arms sales to Russia between 2014 and 2020, despite an EU arms ban being in place. The bloc’s total arms sales to Russia amounted to €352.4 million (£296 million).

But it was France that received the biggest share of that total.

Paris sold arms to Moscow for a total of €233.7 million (£196 million).

In 2020, Austria delivered €2,513,644 worth of ammunition to Russia.

For the same period of time (2014-2020), the UK sold zero arms to Russia abiding to the EU’s ban implemented as a response to Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine.

The EU also exported a total of €1.495 billion (£1.257bn) of arms licences to Russia.

The embargo against Moscow was introduced with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Confronted, the French Armed Forces ministry confirmed that France “allowed the execution of certain contracts concluded before 2014”, which was permitted under the embargo’s exceptions.

The embargo allowed countries to fulfil contracts they had signed with Russia before 2014, giving France and other EU states up until 2020 to provide Moscow with its military ammunition.

Researchers Facts4EU.Org said: “The French government of Emmanuel Macron has significant stakes in French defence contractors such as Thales and Safran.

“It is therefore entirely complicit in this trade.

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“Whilst President Macron may be able to argue that France has obeyed the letter of the arms ban – which seems doubtful so many years after the ban was imposed – there is no question that France has an important moral question to answer.”

They also claimed France has failed to specify which weapons it has supplied to Putin’s Russia during those years.

Whilst other EU countries have provided a detailed list, France has merely used the decryption “ML Categories not specified”, where ML starts for military list.

They added: “What we can report with certainty is that Macron’s France has supplied Putin’s Russia with €233.7m of military equipment on the EU’s banned list from 2014. It would seem reasonable to conclude that a proportion of this is currently being used against Ukraine’s citizens right now.”

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Companies in the UK, then a member of the European Union and subject to EU rules on the embargo, were also granted 30 licences to export £3.7 million worth of goods classed as for military purposes to Russia between then and September 30, 2021.

According to data filed by Campaign Against Arms Trade and reported by National World, this included £1.4 million worth of components for military aircraft, helicopters or drones, and £1.2 million of ammunition.

A spokesperson for the UK Department for International Trade said all the licences that had been approved following to introduction of the embargo in 2014 were compliant with the limitations.

They said: “We have not granted any export licences to Russia for controlled military items following the arms embargo imposed in July 2014 for its illegal annexation of Crimea.

“The UK has suspended the approval of new export licences for dual-use items to Russia with immediate effect. All extant licences for those items will be suspended and military exports to Russia remain prohibited.”

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