Arms imports to Europe are set to nearly double by 2022, driven by large shipments to Ukraine, which has become the world’s third-largest destination, researchers said Monday.
With a jump of 93 percent compared to the previous year, imports also increased due to the acceleration of military spending by European countries including Poland and Norway, said a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
And the level of imports is expected to be faster, he said.
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“The invasion has really led to an increase in the demand for arms in Europe, which will have a wider effect and will probably increase the import of arms by European countries,” Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at SIPRI, told AFP.
Excluding Ukraine, European imports will still increase by 35 percent in 2022, according to SIPRI data.
Ukraine until last year was an unsustainable arms importer.
But in 2022 it quickly became the world’s third-largest arms destination, after Qatar and India, as Western countries sent weapons after the Russian invasion.
Ukraine alone accounts for 31 percent of arms transfers to Europe and eight percent of overall world shipments, according to SIPRI data.
Ukraine’s imports, including donations, grew more than 60 times last year, the institute found.
Shipments to Ukraine are mainly weapons lifted from the stockpile.
Among them were 230 artillerymen from the US; 280 Polish armored vehicles; and more than 7,000 British anti-tank missiles, as well as other newly produced pieces such as anti-aircraft systems, SIPRI said.
– ‘The Whole Spectrum’ –
In ranking the global arms trade, the agency uses its own unit of value, rather than dollars or euros.
Although it is difficult to put a dollar value because of the many unclear contracts, the global arms trade is more than $100 billion a year, and SIPRI said last year that total military spending had exceeded $2 trillion for the first time.
Estimates of military expenditure for 2022 by SIPRI will be released in April.
The surge in imports to Ukraine has accelerated an already escalating trend, as European countries have begun to rearm due to tensions with Moscow following the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
European countries have “already ordered or planned” weapons ranging from “submarines to fighter planes, from drones to anti-tank missiles, from guns to radars”, Wezeman said.
“Everything is considered, because the idea is to strengthen the military capacity through the entire spectrum of military technologies that are available.”
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The European Union, which is currently finalizing plans to supply millions of oyster shells to Ukraine, is also seeking to increase production locally in Europe.
EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, announced on French radio, Monday, a project involving 15 producers in 11 member states.
SIPRI prefers to analyze trends over half a decade because some contracts can skew the numbers every year.
Over the past five years (2018-2022), European imports have increased by 47 percent compared to five years ago, while world transfers have decreased by five percent, he said.
– Import down elsewhere –
Unlike Europe, all other continents have reduced imports over the past five years.
There was a noticeable decrease in Africa (-40 percent) and in North and South America (-20 percent), and also in Asia (-7 percent) and the Middle East (-9 percent).
In another major shift, the Middle East became the top destination for arms exports last year, accounting for 32 percent of the world total.
Jumping ahead of Asia-Oceania, which has been in first place for many years, but it has dropped twice in 2022, with 30 percent of the total and Europe closes with 27 percent.
China continues to spend heavily on its military but is increasingly producing weapons locally, before importing too much from Russia, which has led to a decline in exports to Asia, SIPRI said.
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The main destinations of arms transfers are Qatar (10 percent of the world total), India (9 percent) and Ukraine (8 percent), followed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (7 percent each) and Pakistan (5 percent).
The world’s top five exporters over the past five years remain the United States (40 percent); Russia (16 percent); France (11 percent); China (5 percent); and Germany (4 percent).
But while the U.S. is seeing an increase in exports, “Russian arms exports are clearly down,” Wezeman said, while noting that there is talk of China becoming a supplier to Russia.