Europe arms imports nearly double over Ukraine

Weapons imports to Europe nearly doubled over the past five years, partly due to the war in Ukraine, while arms deliveries from Russia halved, researchers said on Monday.

Ukraine has become the world’s fourth-largest arms importer, while France has replaced Russia as the world’s second-largest exporter, after the United States.

Arms imports to Europe rose by 94 percent in 2019 to 2023, compared to the preceding five-year period, while overall global arms transfers decreased slightly, said a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), which prefers to analyze trends over half-decades as a few deliveries of major contracts can tilt yearly figures.

The increase is “partially explained by the war in Ukraine, and Ukraine has become the fourth-largest importer of arms in the world in the last five years,” Sipri researcher Katarina Djokic told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The institute said at least 30 countries had supplied major weapons as military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.

But other European nations also increased imports, with a larger share coming from the US.

From 2019 to 2023, 55 percent of imports to Europe were from the US, up from 35 percent in the 2014–2018 period.

This is partly due to most European states being North Atlantic Treaty Organization members and US partners in developing weapon systems like the F-35 fighter jet, Djokic said.

At the same time, increased imports from the US underlined many European nations’ desire to quickly acquire weapons and therefore buy “off the shelf” rather than develop new systems.

Globally, US exports grew by 17 percent in the period, bringing its share of total arms exports to 42 percent.

Meanwhile, Russia — which long held the position of second-largest exporter — saw its outbound shipments fall by 53 percent between 2014 and 2018 and between 2019 and 2023.

Russia was not only exporting fewer weapons; it was also shipping them out to fewer recipients.

It only exported to 12 countries in 2023, compared to 31 in 2019.

“There are also important changes in the policies of their biggest customer, China,” Djokic said.

China was traditionally one of the biggest recipients of Russian arms but has been pushing to develop its domestic production.

The East Asian country still accounted for 21 percent of Russian exports, while India was the biggest recipient with 34 percent.

While Russia’s exports declined, France saw its own grow by 47 percent, narrowly overtaking Moscow as the world’s No. 2 arms exporter.

France accounted for 11 percent of total weapons exports from 2019 to 2023.

Djokic said France had been particularly successful in selling its Rafale fighter jet outside Europe.

Meanwhile, the war in Gaza has already affected arms imports to Israel.

This is primarily through transfers of weapons from the US, either via new military aid or the speeding up already existing contracts, said Zain Hussain, another Sipri exporter.

He cautioned that the longerterm impact of the conflict was harder to predict.

“We already see in certain European states a kind of push by different actors or states to limit arms to Israel during its [military] operations in Gaza due to potential violations of international humanitarian law,” Hussain said.

Such measures could affect transfers to Israel.

The question then remains as to whether they would remain in place after the end of Israel’s current ground and air assault on Gaza, Hussain said.