The British Defense Secretary said the UK is buying Soviet and Russian-made defense equipment to give to the Ukrainians to help them fight the Russian invaders.
‘large portions of [ministry of defense] And defense attaches around the world are looking forward,” Ben Wallace told reporters in Washington.
“Sometimes we bump into Russians looking, by the way, in some countries, they’re also looking for some resupply because… they’re running out fast,” he said.
Mr. Wallace said 23 countries had stockpiles of Russian equipment.
“If you really want to get it to the Ukrainians tomorrow morning so they can keep fighting… find what they’ve been trained for, find what they need,” he said.
Afghanistan, which was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1979, likely had old stocks of Soviet equipment, but Mr. Wallace noted that not even the Russians would dare buy weapons there.
The US and UK governments have sought to reassure, and in some cases compensate, European countries with old Soviet or Russian-made weapons, such as Bulgaria and Slovakia, to bolster their military presence, provide security guarantees or offer to replace those systems with Western-made alternatives if they move their systems to Ukraine.
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