EU arms firms trying to flout Belarus and Russia ban (2021)March 31, 2022
Three EU-based firms are suspected of trying to smuggle arms to Belarus and Russia, in what might be the tip of a larger black market.
Czech firm Česká zbrojovka tried to export over 100 rifles and pistols via Moldova to Russia in 2020, according to a Moldovan document seen by EUobserver.
The shipment included ‘CZ TSR’-model sniper rifles, which can be used for sport or by special police.
Hungarian firm De Fango and Slovak firm XXeurope also tried to export hundreds of thousands of ammunition cartridges via Moldova to Belarus at about the same time, the document indicated.
The EU imposed arms embargoes on Belarus and Russia in 2011 and 2014.
And a Moldovan liaison officer shared the information – a 12-page PowerPoint presentation created by Moldovan law-enforcement authorities – with an EU diplomat in Chișinău in July to raise the alarm.
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Politieagent Richard van der V. zegt “dikzak” en “klootzak” tegen een burger, beledigt, slaat, schopt en gebruikt pepperspray tegen hem en gaat vrij uitMarch 22, 2022
Mo, een gekleurde bekende van de politie, wordt op 25 april 2020 door de politie in Hilversum aangehouden. Hij zou de corona maatregelen hebben overtreden omdat hij met drie niet gezinsleden in de auto zat. Tijdens het uitschrijven van de bekeuring ontstaat er een woordenwisseling tussen Mo en agent Richard van der V. Van der V. zegt tegen Mo dat hij “een dikzak” is. Mo vindt dit niet oké en maakt de agent daarop uit voor “sukkel”. Vervolgens wordt Mo met geweld aangehouden. Hij en zijn medepassagiers worden niet meer beboet voor het overtreden van de coronamaatregelen.
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De rek in de sleepwetMarch 6, 2022
Nog geen 5 jaar na de invoering van de nieuwe inlichtingenwet blijkt deze alweer te krap, en klinkt de roep om de bevoegdheden te verruimen. Hiermee lijkt de geschiedenis zich opnieuw te herhalen, waarin de wet telkens wordt opgerekt om illegale operaties van inlichtingendiensten te legaliseren.
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Stalking door de politie GroningenMarch 3, 2022
Op maandag 21 februari werd ik plots gebeld door iemand van de politie die zich voorstelde als Nico Lefferts en die aangaf in gesprek te willen met mij als onderdeel van AFA Noord over de komende verkiezingen en te verwachten spanningen tussen partijen als het Forum voor Democratie en ons als antifa beweging.
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Weapons of the war in Ukraine. Russian entities acquired British, Czech, French, German, Spanish, and US-made components for use in the manufacture of these drones.February 28, 2022
Since 2014, the news media and other observers have provided accounts of weapon sourcing to armed formations operating in certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. To date, efforts to verify these claims have relied largely on examinations of open-source photos and videos of weapons and ammunition, rather than systematic field-based investigations.
To fill this evidentiary gap, CAR undertook a three-year field investigation of materiel recovered from the self-declared DPR and LPR. This report presents the findings to help shed light on the extent to which these armed formations depend on external supplies.
The evidence confirms that factories based in what is today the Russian Federation produced most of the militias’ ammunition and nearly all their weapons, from assault rifles and precision rifles, grenade launchers, precision-guided munitions, and landmines to anti-tank guided weapons. The findings also indicate that these armed formations field weapons previously captured by Russian forces, such as Polish anti-aircraft missiles seized in Georgia in 2008.
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The United States secretly captured 20 Russian military drones and tracked the entire technology supply chain. The key parts are all imported componentsFebruary 28, 2022
The tough future of Russia’s attack drones
The rapid development of military drones around the world has raised a natural question time and time again-why is Russia so backward in design and production? In most cases, the main reason for this is the lazy thinking of the military and engineers. However, one of the most important and completely unreported problems lies in a completely different level-the technical level. Today we are going to analyze the real reason why Russia has fallen behind in attacking drones.
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Western sanctions cause “huge problems” for Russia’s war sector (but Israel probably still supplies drone parts) – military expertFebruary 28, 2022
Editor’s Note
When we published the key points of the report “Weapons of War in Ukraine” by the UK-based investigative organization Conflict Armament Research, it caught our eye that between 2014 and 2018, the drone manufacturer Israel Aerospace Industries supplied a sanctioned Russian defense company with UAV components produced by various European and US manufacturers, thus providing a loophole for sanctions evasion.
To understand whether it is used now, we reached out to military expert Mykhailo Samus, Director of the New Geopolitics Research Network, and found out how exactly Israeli technologies are helping Russia today, when western companies decided that it’s not worth the risk supplying war technologies to Russia, and that, paradoxically, Ukraine is still under an unofficial arms embargo from countries of Western Europe.
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Russian drones shot down over Ukraine were full of Western parts. Can the U.S. cut them off?February 28, 2022
The surveillance drones contained computer chips and components made in the United States and Europe
In early 2017, Ukrainian forces battling Russia-backed separatists shot down a drone conducting surveillance over the eastern flank of Ukraine.
The unmanned aircraft, nearly six feet long with a cone-shaped nose and a shiny gray body, had all the external characteristics of a Russian military drone. When researchers cracked it open, however, they found electronic components manufactured by a half-dozen Western companies.
The engine came from a German company that supplies model-airplane hobbyists. Computer chips for navigation and wireless communication were made by U.S. suppliers. A British company provided a motion-sensing chip. Other parts came from Switzerland and South Korea.
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British parts found on downed Russian spy drones in Ukraine and EUFebruary 28, 2022
British components have been found in Russian-made spy drones captured by Ukrainian and Lithuanian forces, a report shows.
The parts are among European kit discovered on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) deployed over Ukraine and neighbouring countries during the conflict in the country’s eastern Donbass region, researchers have found.
Ukraine is under the threat of invasion, with an estimated 130,000 Russian troops massed over the border and in Belarus and Crimea.
The three-year investigation suggests that the Kremlin is using an opaque supply line to circumvent EU and US embargoes preventing it from buying electronic components for military use. The study traced the flow of weapons and military vehicles to Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass, who have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014.
One of the drones bearing UK-made parts was captured by Ukrainian defence and security forces near the coastal city of Mariupol in the Donetsk region, where the insurgents have established a self-declared republic.
An autopsy on the equipment by Conflict Armament Research (CAR) found an inertial sensor, a type of measurement unit, made by a British firm named in the report as Silicon Sensing Systems.
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