346 million despite the embargo: Europe’s arms deliveries to Putin

Berlin Versailles on Friday last week, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at the EU summit: “Our destinies are linked. Ukraine belongs to the European family. Vladimir Putin’s attack is an attack on all the principles we hold dear.” The Versailles summit showed how the European Union is trying to pull together in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Only a year ago, however, Vladimir Putin and his army were good customers of the European defense industry. Arms were exported to the Russian Federation from a third of EU member states, including Germany, according to data from the EU Working Group on Conventional Arms Exports – COARM.

The data comes from the official arms export registers of all 27 EU countries and shows that at least ten member states exported weapons worth 346 million euros to Russia between 2015 and 2020.