Russia can use merchant vessels to deliver weapons to Ukraine. Intelligence of the European Union and the United States came to such conclusions, writes Bloomberg.
According to an unnamed official in the United States, Moscow uses trading ships from other countries as a cover to deliver weapons to the Black Sea. According to European intelligence, last month, the Sparta II merchant ship delivered military equipment from Syria to Russia.
The ship was seen from July 17 to 25 in the Syrian port, after which he sailed Bosphorus and arrived in Novorossiysk. “Vehicles” were transported in his hold, but there are no details that
It is not known what Russia could bring from Syria. However, experts noted that in 2017, the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Sergey Shoigu claimed that the Russian military at the Syrian bases received more than 160 types of modern weapons, including fighters, laser guns, tanks, electronic warfare and air defense systems.
The US intelligence services and the European Union believe that weapons from Syria can be transported first to the Crimea, and from there to the captured Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions. Strengthening these areas may be associated with the threat of counterattack of Ukraine in the south.