NAYPYITAW, 9 September 2021, (TON): A rights group called for a halt to Ukraine’s arms deals with the Myanmar junta, urging Western governments to use their influence to cut off the eastern European country’s supply of weapons to the coup regime. 

Justice for Myanmar (JFM), a group of activists that monitors the military’s businesses and its networks, said in a statement that it found evidence that Ukraine had made multiple shipments of parts for aircrafts, ships, and tanks as well as air surveillance radars to the junta or its affiliated private arms dealers from 2015 until late May of this year.

The statement identified a shipment of turbojet engine parts sent by Ukrainian firm Motor Sich to the Myanmar army on May 31 as the most recent deal; it also coincided with the perpetration of military airstrikes on many ethnic areas. 

JFM highlighted a joint production project between Myanmar’s defence industry and two Ukrainian state-owned companies; Ukroboronprom and Ukrspecexport as being particularly alarming.

The plant in question, which produced BTR-4 armoured personnel carriers, MMT-40 light tanks and 2SIU self-propelled howitzers, was identified by the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar in 2019 as a recommended target for arms transfer sanctions.