Arms Watch: Krusik Made Mortar Shells Used Against Pro-Russian Forces in Donbass

Arms watch on Serbian arms trafficked to Ukraine (printscren/armswatch.com)

Bulgarian Arms Watch portal posted on Nov .21 an article that says that Ukrainian forces were using contraband Serbian weapons in war in Donbass.

The author of the article “Serbian arms trafficked to Ukraine: evidence of contraband mortars used against Donbass” is a Bulgarian investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva who has written before on the same portal about the involvement of Serbian Minister of Interior’s father in weapons trafficking and the arrest of the whistleblower from the Valjevo arms factory Krusik.

Following the publication of the said article the website suffered a hacker attack and was temporarily down.

The text says that although Serbia has not been officially exporting weapons toUkrainesince the beginning of the armed conflict betweenUkraineand the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), it seems like Serbian weapons manufactured in 2016, have been used by the Ukrainian forces in Donbass war.

The article is supported by numerous pictures published by the Ministry of Defense in Donbass on Nov. 9, 2019. One of the images clearly shows a 60 mm caliber Serbian mortar shell M73 HE KV found, according to the author, in Donbass by DNR soldiers, and which had been fired by the Ukraine army, but did not explode.

This is not the first documented case of the Ukrainian armed forces using Serbian ammunition. From evidence the Arms Watch gathered in 2016, three foreign governments had commissioned and purchased M73 HE type mortar shells from Serbian arms factory Krusik: the U.S., Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

According to publicly available information, Saudi Arabia does not officially export arms to Ukraine. The U.S. government, on the other hand, officially sanctioned the export of deadly weapons to Ukraine, but only a year later, in 2017.

The U.A.E., Ukrainian data shows, does officially provide Ukraine with arms, the text further says.

On Feb. 24, 2015,Ukraine and U.A.E. signed a military agreement in Abu Dhabi which, in the words of the then president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, was to strengthen the Ukrainian defense capacities.

Following the signing, Anton Gerashenko, the deputy minister of internal affairs and advisor to Minister of the Interior Arsen Avakov, said that the agreement means that the U.A.E. will “provide Ukraine with a certain type of weapons and military equipment,” but that the types and quantity of the goods will not be discussed on the Facebook.

The Deputy also added that the Arabs, unlike the Europeans and Americans, are not afraid of Putin’s threats about the outbreak of world war three should Ukraine receive arms and ammunition.

The documents reveal that in 2016, the U.A.E. purchased a total of 120,000 mortar shells manufactured in Krusik, and among them were the 60 mm M73 HE such as have been found in Donbass, Arms Watch reports.

The exporter was, the article says, a private company GIM which, according to the letter to Krusik, was represented by Serbian Minister of Interior’s father Branko Stefanovic.