Ukraine will provide Iraq with a variety of military equipment under a recent deal intended to support Iraq's armed forces, a Russian newspaper has reported.
The agreement, worth an estimated $2.4 billion between the state arms exporter UkrSpetsExport and the Iraqi defense ministry, is the largest in Ukraine's history, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily wrote Wednesday, quoting the head of the Ukrainian parliament's security and defense committee, Anatoly Grytsenko,
reported.
Grytsenko said the deal calls for Kiev to produce and deliver 420 BTR-4 armored personnel carriers, six AN-32B military transport planes and other military hardware to Iraq.
"The deals have been concluded. They are now formalizing the contracts," Grytsenko, who previously served as Ukraine's defense minister, told the Associated Press.
"The contract is to be carried out in stages and, from what I was told, just the first stage is worth $400 million," he added.
Meanwhile, Nezavisimaya Gazeta cited Sergei Zgurets, head of research at the Kiev-based Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies (CACDS) as saying the agreement could have been influenced by Washington as the United States is providing billions of dollars in military aid to ready the Iraqis for the task of policing a country still plagued by insurgents and suicide bombings.
The major arms agreement could lift the ex-Soviet republic to the 4th or 5th place among the top arms dealers in the world, from its current place as 14th.
It could have a negative impact on the relations between Ukrainian and Russian arms manufacturers because Russia was actively seeking arms contracts with Iraq.
"This deal will certainly cause concern in Russia as Ukraine, which has always been one of Russia's main competitors on global arms markets, is now reestablishing its positions in this sphere," Nezavisimaya Gazeta cited a source in the Ukrainian military.
