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20261105 033000 UTC
375 transcript segments
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[00:00:00] the power of partnership, will continue to bolster Ukraine's
[00:00:03] armed forces by rushing them the capabilities that they need to defend their
[00:00:07] country, but where does this aid really
[00:00:10] go, and who decided to arm a country that has been one of the
[00:00:13] biggest supermarkets of smuggled weapons for almost 30 years.
[00:00:20] to the market
[00:00:50] My name is Radwan Mortada. I am a journalist specializing
[00:00:53] in security and judicial files,
[00:00:56] and terrorist groups. Since then, I have specialized
[00:01:00] specifically in security files and I was following
[00:01:03] the files of jihadists
[00:01:06] and a large number in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and the Middle
[00:01:08] East.
[00:01:13] journalist and during his career he's produced hundreds of reports on wars in the
[00:01:16] middle east. he's met with Islamic jihadist leaders
[00:01:20] many times and knows exactly how weapons get into their
[00:01:23] hands.
[00:01:26] There's something here that I'll show you now, this map.
[00:01:35] All the Lebanese-Syrian borders have
[00:01:39] illegal crossings through which smugglers,
[00:01:41] whose profession is the residents of those
[00:01:45] areas, and the Lebanese, pass.
[00:02:00] We will contact one of the arms dealers in the Bekaa
[00:02:03] region to come and tell us. We will film an
[00:02:06] interview with him. He will come and tell us
[00:02:09] exactly what the situation of Ukrainian weapons is. Do we have Ukrainian weapons or not, and where are they coming
[00:02:13] from?
[00:02:16] Hello, hello. Hello.
[00:02:20] How are you? Fine. How are you?
[00:02:24] I'm fine, habibi.
[00:02:27] We were talking about filming
[00:02:31] with him. When can we? When do you
[00:02:34] want? We can today, we can tomorrow. And you go ahead. I'll get there
[00:02:38] and someone will be waiting for me and you'll say hello and you'll guide me. I'll meet the guy and he'll bring
[00:02:42] you to us.
[00:02:46] mafia arms dealers set up a meeting in a small town on the lebanise
[00:02:50] border
[00:02:55] one of the main arms trafficking roots in the middle east passes through
[00:02:58] here. We're going to the Bekaa now. We need
[00:03:02] to meet, we need to see exactly
[00:03:05] what weapons are available in the market, what prices they are being sold
[00:03:08] at, whether there is a demand for weapons now
[00:03:12] or not, and what is the connection between the war in Ukraine
[00:03:16] and arms
[00:03:16] smuggling to the region.
[00:03:23] a 30 minute drive from the syrian border a meeting is arranged here with a guide who will take the journalist to major arms
[00:03:27] dealer.
[00:03:43] an unremarkable gray house on the
[00:03:45] poor people who wait outskirts, but this modest exterior hides what resembles
[00:03:49] an arms warehouse.
[00:03:52] arms smuggling is big business for the locals and sometimes
[00:03:56] it's the only way to survive.
[00:04:11] only. Minnin was a link in
[00:04:30] These weapons, we produce them today.
[00:04:32] The weapons that you see here in front of you, we have two sources
[00:04:36] for them. Many people, because of the economic crisis, have started
[00:04:40] selling their weapons. That is, the poor class and the destitute class
[00:04:43] today are selling individual weapons. They don't
[00:04:46] have heavy or medium weapons. They have individual weapons and they are forced to sell them
[00:04:50] to survive. This is due to the economic crisis. And also
[00:04:54] tank. Within a month of today, we are receiving Ukrainian weapons. You know, at
[00:04:59] global nature of the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine
[00:05:02] weapons. These weapons are then taken by traders to Turkey,
[00:05:05] and from Turkey they enter Iraq, and from Iraq they come overland to Syria
[00:05:09] and Lebanon. We as traders are now finding in the market
[00:05:13] that medium and light weapons are being offered to
[00:05:17] us. They tell us that these are Ukrainian NATO weapons, and you can see that the pieces
[00:05:20] are still new, clean, and well-maintained weapons.
[00:05:23] But their price is more expensive than the price of Lebanese
[00:05:26] weapons and the weapons available in the market. But the Ukrainian
[00:05:30] weapons that are coming
[00:05:32] are very, very well-maintained.
[00:05:39] What kind of weapons are coming? Can you tell me about them?
[00:05:43] The weapons coming from Ukraine through Syria by land
[00:05:47] are Kalashnikovs, Pikes, and
[00:05:49] small pistols. All of them are new and still
[00:05:53] in their boxes, Muhammad. Never.
[00:05:57] People like it. We have a young
[00:06:01] generation that likes to buy such
[00:06:05] things. You tell him this piece came from Ukraine, it's still in its box or
[00:06:08] still covered in grease, as they say. They like it. So everything is coming in.
[00:06:12] Medium, meaning Pike weapons and below. Pike,
[00:06:15] Kalash,
[00:06:19] of pistols
[00:06:21] are entering. Small pistols. You also told me that there were
[00:06:23] sniper rifles. The issue of
[00:06:26] sniper rifles. Sniper rifles entered, but most of them are
[00:06:29] sold in Syria. Sniper rifles. Some
[00:06:33] pieces entered Lebanon. Today, sniper rifles are in demand in Syria because
[00:06:36] there is a war there. In Lebanon, sniper rifles are
[00:06:40] not used much.
[00:08:32] The eight nation eastern European block whose mission had been to maintain
[00:08:35] peace in post war Europe was abolished, weapons from all
[00:08:39] Soviet military units were repatriated.
[00:08:43] Preparations are always a hassle, especially when you are taking away such a large
[00:08:46] household.
[00:08:52] From the GDR, Czechoslovakia and Hungary,
[00:08:54] six tank divisions will return to their homeland.
[00:08:58] In addition, by decision of the USSR government, all military equipment
[00:09:01] from Hungary and Poland was withdrawn here. This was a mass
[00:09:05] of weapons, they didn't sit on a golden
[00:09:07] barrel.
[00:09:14] After the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine, now
[00:09:17] independent, came into possession of, according to the most
[00:09:20] conservative estimates, 9,00 tanks,
[00:09:23] 11,00 armored vehicles, 18,000 artillery
[00:09:26] systems, 4,000 aircraft and helicopters, in addition to
[00:09:30] tens of millions of small arms and billions of rounds of
[00:09:34] ammunition. London's international institute for
[00:09:36] strategic studies said Ukraine's military property was worth around
[00:09:40] $90 billion dollars. everything that was there was the most advanced at that time.
[00:09:44] In Ukraine, there were T-80 tanks,
[00:09:48] a gas turbine tank could cover 15-20
[00:09:51] km, which is especially important when responding to a combat
[00:09:55] alarm. It was indeed a very advanced
[00:09:58] tank. The T-80 has a turbojet
[00:10:01] engine, it was unique in itself, this
[00:10:07] the USSR's collapse, the new
[00:10:09] Ukrainian state launched a global sell off. of Soviet
[00:10:13] weapons. The first contracts were signed shortly
[00:10:16] after, and in 1991,
[00:10:20] series of civil wars broke out in
[00:10:22] Yugoslavia.
[00:10:45] I saw the breakup of Yugoslavia, I participated in the
[00:10:49] war.
[00:10:55] I acquired certain military knowledge during
[00:10:59] my military service and a security course
[00:11:02] in the Pančevo garrison, military post
[00:11:06] 2875, under General Mladen Bratić.
[00:11:20] Was an intelligence officer in Bosnia. He saw how weapons flooded into the for.
[00:11:25] Yugoslavia,
[00:11:28] Mujahideen, terrorists came in
[00:11:32] armored vehicles and transporters of
[00:11:35] the then international organizations, but people came,
[00:11:38] weapons came mainly
[00:11:42] within the flights on
[00:11:46] planes that were available to Alija Izetbegović,
[00:11:49] Antonov 2 was mainly used, and it was operated by
[00:11:52] Ukrainian pilots, with Ukrainian... armament and military equipment,
[00:11:56] because of the connections with certain Ukrainian
[00:11:59] generals who reached the top of the then
[00:12:03] Ukrainian government, up to President Leonid Kuchma, who
[00:12:06] reached various people in the Ministry
[00:12:09] of Defense.
[00:12:15] This would then open up a much larger question of the responsibility
[00:12:18] of the political and state leadership for financing terrorism, for war
[00:12:22] crimes on Vozuća, especially in the middle.
[00:12:25] So, towards Croats on Vozuća, towards Serbs and so on, Astra
[00:12:29] company also received S300, it received a missile system
[00:12:32] that was a marvel at the time, which was then, so
[00:12:36] practically, few countries had it,
[00:12:39] imagine that Ukraine sent one of the two
[00:12:43] it had at that
[00:12:45] time to Croatia.
[00:12:55] When we were quite accustomed to having half the globe dance to our
[00:12:58] tune.
[00:13:03] Who could possibly have imagined that in the 21st
[00:13:06] century I would find myself being obliged to
[00:13:09] dance?
[00:13:18] We taught India to speak English and
[00:13:21] because of you, I have to speak in Hindi.
[00:13:44] heavy weapons were delivered to Bosnia by sea from Odessa,
[00:13:48] the cargo went through the Croatian ports of Riecha and
[00:13:51] split, small arms and ammunition were often delivered.
[00:13:58] All the time during the war 1991-1995,
[00:14:01] officially there was an embargo on the import
[00:14:04] of weapons into the territory of SFR Yugoslavia, an embargo
[00:14:07] that the United Nations adopted. However,
[00:14:11] in practice, that embargo was not
[00:14:14] respected. It was known immediately when the Ukrainian
[00:14:18] Antonov was shot
[00:14:20] down, this happened at Plitvice
[00:14:24] Lakes. It looks like a jungle
[00:14:26] where that Antonov plane crashed. And yes, it is a transport plane, it's from
[00:14:30] the Soviet Union. His task was
[00:14:33] to transport weapons and ammunition
[00:14:35] from Croatia or from Pleso, Zagreb Airport,
[00:14:39] or from Krk, there was an airport on the island of Krk,
[00:14:42] for the Fifth Muslim Corps.
[00:14:46] Leonid Mininen an entrepreneur close to Ukraine's
[00:14:49] top leadership was
[00:14:51] shipments. This rare footage shows min in watching a
[00:14:55] small arms demonstration with colleagues.
[00:14:59] We'd never have learned of the existence of this major
[00:15:03] trafficker of death,
[00:15:05] He had, he
[00:15:08] owned a hotel in Cinisello
[00:15:12] Balsamo. And
[00:15:15] so this hotel had the presidential
[00:15:18] suite on the top floor, that is, residential, a
[00:15:21] hotel, not four stars, but it had its
[00:15:25] little room. And so he picked up prostitutes who
[00:15:28] he took to his room in his suite.
[00:15:31] So one of these was not
[00:15:35] paid, she went to the police.
[00:16:20] This documentation was the key to Liberian exports, the key to
[00:16:24] exports to the Democratic Republic of Congo, to
[00:16:27] Burkina Faso, to Eritrea and
[00:16:30] Ethiopia.
[00:16:37] we discovered this trafficking
[00:16:54] that he, Minin, organized from Ukraine for the
[00:16:58] supply of arms to the rebels of Sierra
[00:17:02] Leone through what had become the
[00:17:05] president.
[00:17:15] exotic and tropical timber enterprise,
[00:17:19] officially it conducted logging operations in liberia,
[00:17:23] but in fact as confirmed by a UN special commission, it
[00:17:26] supplied arms to president Charles Taylor, a ruthless
[00:17:29] dictator guilty of genocide against his countries.
[00:17:33] I then went to Monrovia in Liberia, I went to visit the factory.
[00:17:37] to see them find other documentation there, but at the same
[00:17:40] time he supplied weapons
[00:17:43] to the RUF rebels through the mediation of the
[00:17:47] president of Liberia,
[00:17:50] Taylor.
[00:17:54] this is not a military
[00:17:56] cool, this is pure civilian of
[00:18:00] rising.
[00:18:04] using dummy companies, minion acquired.
[00:18:37] they are easy to transport, no scanner can detect them.
[00:18:44] And in return, the payments for these things can
[00:18:47] be made with oil, for example, I don't pay you
[00:18:51] cash in dollars, but I pay you with oil
[00:18:54] supplies, diamond supplies, or other
[00:18:58] means.
[00:19:03] so-called blood diamonds,
[00:19:07] unlike metals, for example, gold, but
[00:19:11] a kilogram, half a kilogram, 200 grams of diamonds is already a huge
[00:19:15] sum, for large shipments of weapons, Ukrainian war barons
[00:19:18] chartered aircraft which were registered in offshore
[00:19:21] zones. Most armed shipments were carried a
[00:19:25] BAC 111 owned by an Israeli businessman of
[00:19:29] Ukrainian origin, Leonid
[00:19:31] Minnin.
[00:19:34] Registered in the cayens, it was operated by Limard. the firm registered in
[00:19:38] Monaco. These are photos of one of the airlines
[00:19:42] that arrived in Liberia, circumventing the UN arms
[00:19:45] embargo. It stagged full of weapons boxes. The
[00:19:49] plane was owned by Leonid Minnin. The first
[00:19:53] delivery arranged by Minnin in March 1999
[00:19:56] was a cargo of 68 tons of military
[00:19:59] equipment, including 3000 akm
[00:20:03] assault refel, 1 million rounds of ammunition.
[00:20:07] 25 rpgs sevens and related
[00:20:11] ordinance, esterla 3 and
[00:20:14] met systems and 80 related missiles, the
[00:20:17] arms were bought from the ukrainian arms marketing
[00:20:20] company, yukerpets export, minions and his business
[00:20:24] partners names and their involvement in UK exports arms
[00:20:28] deliveries surfaceed during investigations into arms
[00:20:31] dealing in the middle east, payments of the shipment show the
[00:20:36] the arms de
[00:20:50] further payments from the same amount were
[00:20:53] made to various companies including
[00:20:57] yoker spet export air foil
[00:21:00] transbalkan cargo service
[00:21:03] fonex arsenal
[00:21:05] corp general technical
[00:21:07] bulgaria the scale of the trade is
[00:21:11] astonishing hundreds of thousands of tons of contraband were
[00:21:15] plied between the continents
[00:21:18] for some odd reason it went uner. for many
[00:21:20] years, the second arms delivery arranged
[00:21:24] by Minnin was rooted via Codevoir
[00:21:28] rather than Burkina Faso, the arms deal consisted of
[00:21:32] 130, 13 tons of
[00:21:35] arms brokered through the Ukrainian state-owned
[00:21:39] company and included
[00:21:42] 10,500 ak 47
[00:21:45] asalt rifle, 120 sniper
[00:21:49] guns. 100 grenade launcher, night
[00:21:52] vision equipment and 8 million rounds of ammunition.
[00:21:56] A portion of these arms was delivered in July
[00:22:00] 2000s, apparently distined for Code
[00:22:03] divoir, using an end user certificate
[00:22:06] signed on May 26th, 2000s by a senior
[00:22:10] official of the Ministry of Defense. The officials mentioned in the documents,
[00:22:14] their patrons in Keve and Minion and his friends didn't seem to be on intelligence
[00:22:18] agencies radars.
[00:22:28] German, a passport, we were saying that, a Ukrainian passport,
[00:22:32] an Israeli service passport, he also
[00:22:35] had that which allowed him to move around very easily,
[00:22:39] but it indicates that he had good, good connections,
[00:22:42] so why, and there again
[00:22:46] why did he have all these passports that he then denied because he was...
[00:22:59] top brass, it would have been impossible implement such a colossal trade of ukrainian
[00:23:03] arms, through the black
[00:23:05] market,
[00:23:09] we got our hands on this immense
[00:23:12] quantity of documents that allowed us to understand, the evidence is in the
[00:23:16] we bill, the evidence is the payments, the evidence is in the...
[00:23:20] the bank files, but there are also
[00:23:24] all the relationships that they maintained among themselves, these people
[00:23:28] in in doing their
[00:23:31] business, various kinds of business, here is the
[00:23:35] illegal arms market, it is
[00:23:37] hidden, secret precisely because it is illegal, and he
[00:23:41] we found in this documentation that he was
[00:23:44] yes, he was the author
[00:23:47] of these arms sales.
[00:23:51] But he wasn't, he was also the one who maintained
[00:23:54] relationships with a series of arms traffickers, for
[00:23:58] example with Marc Rich, a famous arms trafficker
[00:24:01] pardoned by Clinton in the last days of his
[00:24:04] presidency. Minnen's billionaire lifestyle,
[00:24:08] dalliances with African terrorists and connections with politicians and government
[00:24:12] officials all around the world, even inspired Hollywood.
[00:24:15] The film story is quite accurate, but unlike
[00:24:18] Nicholas Cage's character. cops didn't go after Minnin,
[00:24:22] despite overwhelming evidence, an Italian
[00:24:25] court only charged him with possession of drugs and
[00:24:28] diamonds, meaning in Italy justice is quite
[00:24:32] slow, there are
[00:24:35] for justice for years, Mr. Minin
[00:24:38] manages to get an appeal, then the
[00:24:41] Court of Cassation where he is acquitted
[00:24:44] in less than a year.
[00:24:48] This is disturbing. I must say that we are trying to find out what
[00:24:52] happened to him, it's not clear what happened
[00:24:54] to him.
[00:24:58] Can be explained by one thing
[00:25:01] a chain of interested and very powerful parties,
[00:25:05] so powerful that just for them, the Ukrainian parliament adopted
[00:25:08] special laws, for instance, law number
[00:25:11] 1919.
[00:25:15] When anyone could engage in the export of weapons, which was
[00:25:18] recorded not as weapons, but simply as goods, it was simply that
[00:25:22] and this corresponded to Ukrainian legislation, that is, special loopholes
[00:25:25] in the legislation were
[00:25:27] made,
[00:25:31] many knew that ukraine traded arms a statewide
[00:25:34] scale, but the true sales volumes were uncovered by
[00:25:37] accident when in 2008 Somali
[00:25:40] pirates seized a cargo ship, the MV Fiina. With such
[00:25:44] binoculars, we saw pirates
[00:25:46] for the first time.
[00:25:50] olsky is now retired, but these photos on the walls and newspaper
[00:25:54] clippings remind him of past events, they're prominently
[00:25:58] displayed so that his family doesn't forget the hell captain
[00:26:01] nikolsky had. The ship was captured
[00:26:05] at 4:00 PM at the shift
[00:26:09] change. We noticed
[00:26:11] a boat
[00:26:13] on the horizon. On the boat,
[00:26:16] people waved their hands,
[00:26:20] approaching, approaching, then
[00:26:24] shooting began. It happened that their
[00:26:27] capture technique was well-rehearsed: one group
[00:26:30] climbed aboard the ship, the second... opened fire.
[00:26:33] Everything that could be was hit, and in addition, there were two
[00:26:37] shots from an RPG. One fell into the sea,
[00:26:40] splashed, not reaching the side,
[00:26:43] the second hit the side, but did not explode.
[00:26:46] From this, I have long concluded that pirates
[00:26:50] could not have known the nature of the cargo themselves,
[00:26:54] because if they had
[00:26:57] known that a huge
[00:27:00] amount of explosives was being transported, they would never have shot, because
[00:27:04] 10,000 tons,
[00:27:07] exploding, would have made a large crater in the sea
[00:27:10] along with these pirates.
[00:27:13] When they saw,
[00:27:16] went down into the hold, looked,
[00:27:19] of course, the pirates' eyes gleamed with joy, because
[00:27:23] there had never been such
[00:27:24] a jackpot.
[00:30:29] And good evening. It is prime time here in the United States. Thanks for. watching, I'm Bim
[00:30:33] Swan. Tonight we continue our special coverage of the U.S. mid-term
[00:30:36] elections, because in the aftermath of those elections,
[00:30:39] two major questions that we have asked for months have emerged:
[00:30:43] one, yes, Trump's Maga coalition is
[00:30:46] dead, just as we warned. The question
[00:30:49] tonight though is, why? And two, the Iran
[00:30:53] war. Was it a betrayal of voters that cost Republicans
[00:30:56] massive numbers of seats across the country, because after last night...