Report: Ukraine world's 3rd biggest arms importer in 2022

HELSINKI (AP) — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that has led to a substantial flow of military aid to Kyiv from the United States and Europe made Ukraine the world’s third largest importer of arms in 2022, a Swedish think tank said Monday.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI, reported that from 1991, when Ukraine became independent amid the fall of the Soviet Union, until the end of 2021, Ukraine imported few major arms.

But Moscow’s invasion on Feb. 24 last year markedly changed that. Only Qatar — which has dramatically ramped up its arms purchasing in the past decade — and India imported more arms in the year, SIPRI said in its report on global arms transfers.

Pieter Wezeman, senior researcher with the SIPRI Arms Transfers Program noted that even as arms transfers declined globally last year, “those to Europe have risen sharply due to the tensions between Russia and most other European states.” He said that following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European states want to import more arms, “faster.”