BBC claims Pakistan sold arms to Ukraine

LONDON: The British Broadcasting Corporation has claimed to be in possession of documents that purportedly show Pak arms sale to Ukraina, an allegation Pakistan has been rejecting consistently.

In its report, the BBC Urdu says that former Pak army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa addressed the passing-out parade of the British Royal Military Academy on August 12, 2022. As he saw the Pak-UK relations touching “historic heights”, a British military cargo plane landed at PAF Base Nur Khan in Rawalpindi. In future, the plane would land at the same base for five times.

The report says that each time, the plane flew from Nur Khan Airbase to the British military base in Cyprus, Akrotiri, and thence to Romania, at a time when Russia was waging war in Romania’s neighboring country, Ukraine.

Pakistan has repeatedly denied the presence of Pakistani weapons in Ukraine, and its Foreign Office has maintained that Pakistan is completely neutral in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The report says, “Documents in the possession of the BBC show that in August 2022, Pakistan entered into arms sales contracts worth $364 million with two private US military companies under which Pakistan sold 155mm shells to these companies.”

The report says, according to BBC research, the American companies named ‘Global Military’ and ‘Northrop Grumman’ signed two contracts with Pakistan for the purchase of 155mm shells.

“This is evident from the details of the contracts obtained from the Federal Procurement Data System of the United States that these weapons (155mm shells) were bought from Pakistan while both agreements were signed on August 17, 2022, expiring in October this year.

These contracts were specifically for 155mm shells. A $232 million contract was awarded to Global Military and $131 million to Northrop Grumman.”