HELSINKI (AP) — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that has led to a substantial flow of military help to Kyiv from the United States and Europe created Ukraine the world’s third biggest importer of arms in 2022, a Swedish believe tank mentioned Monday.

The Stockholm International Peace Analysis Institute, or SIPRI, reported that from 1991, when Ukraine became independent amid the fall of the Soviet Union, till the finish of 2021, Ukraine imported handful of significant arms.

But Moscow’s invasion on Feb. 24 final year markedly changed that. Only Qatar — which has considerably ramped up its arms buying in the previous decade — and India imported extra arms in the year, SIPRI mentioned in its report on international arms transfers.

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

SIPRI mentioned that the export of arms has lengthy been dominated by the United States and Russia with the two nations getting the biggest and second-biggest arms exporters for the previous 3 decades.

Having said that, the gap in between the two has been widening drastically, when that in between Russia and the third biggest arms supplier, France, has narrowed. The believe tank mentioned it was most likely that the invasion of Ukraine will additional limit Russia’s arms exports due to Moscow’s have to have to prioritize supplying its personal armed forces and low demand from other states due to trade sanctions.

SIPRI’s information showed that U.S. arms exports improved by 14% in between the periods 2013–17 and 2018–22, and Washington accounted for 40% of international arms exports in 2018–22.

Meanwhile, Russia’s arms exports fell by 31% in between the two periods, and its share of international arms exports decreased from 22% to 16%, when France’s share improved from 7.1% to 11%.

SIPRI, established in 1966, is an independent international institute committed to study into conflict, armaments, arms handle and disarmament.

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