RT — Documentary
20261105 213000 UTC
393 transcript segments
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[00:00:00] that arms a ship to the middle east from a country whose top officials
[00:00:03] constantly complain about shortages of ammunition and
[00:00:06] military equipment, weapons for Ukraine, ammunition
[00:00:10] for Ukraine, new defense systems for
[00:00:14] and from Turkey they enter Ukraine.
[00:00:18] of billions of dollars. We'll continue to show the power of partnership, we'll continue to
[00:00:22] bolster Ukraine's armed forces by rushing them the capabilities that
[00:00:25] they need to defend their country. But where
[00:00:28] does this aid really go?
[00:00:30] and who decided to arm a country that has been one of the biggest supermarkets of
[00:00:34] smuggled weapons for almost 30 years.
[00:00:39] weapon that is coming to
[00:00:50] you can tell me about them,
[00:01:09] My name is Radwan Mortada. I am a journalist specializing
[00:01:12] in security and judicial files
[00:01:16] and terrorist groups. Since then until now,
[00:01:19] I have specialized specifically in security files and I was following
[00:01:23] the files of jihadists in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq
[00:01:27] and the Middle East.
[00:01:30] is an independent Lebanese journalist and during his career he's
[00:01:33] produced hundreds of reports on wars in the Middle
[00:01:36] East. He's met with Islamic jihadist leaders many
[00:01:40] times and knows exactly how weapons get into their
[00:01:43] hands.
[00:01:47] This is the map,
[00:01:49] the main thing I'm showing you is the map. That means
[00:01:53] here, for example, all the Lebanese-Syrian
[00:01:57] ammunition, a portion of borders have
[00:02:00] through them, who are professional smugglers, who are residents
[00:02:04] of those areas, Lebanese and Syrian
[00:02:07] Radwan was shocked to learn that arms had traffic to the
[00:02:10] middle east mainly from
[00:02:12] Ukraine.
[00:02:18] Now, what we're going to do is call one of the arms dealers
[00:02:22] in the Bekaa region so that he can come and talk to us, and we'll film
[00:02:26] an interview with him so he can tell us exactly
[00:02:29] what the situation is. Is there Ukrainian weapons with us or not, and where are
[00:02:32] they coming from?
[00:02:35] Hello, hello?
[00:02:37] Hello. Oh, hello, how
[00:02:40] are you? I'm good, how are you?
[00:02:44] I'm good, my dear. We were talking about filming,
[00:02:48] we want to film with
[00:02:51] him and so on. When can we? When do
[00:02:54] you want? We can today, we can tomorrow, and he walks in front of me
[00:02:57] I get there and find someone waiting for me and you walk in the valley.
[00:03:30] Is there a demand for weapons now or not, and what is the link between the war
[00:03:33] in Ukraine and arms smuggling
[00:03:36] to the region? town of Zakle a
[00:03:39] 30-m drive from the Syrian border, a meeting is
[00:03:42] arranged here with a guide who will take the journalist to major arms dealer.
[00:04:02] an unremarkable gray house on the outskirts, but this
[00:04:06] modest exterior hides what resembles an arms
[00:04:09] warehouse.
[00:04:12] arms smuggling is big business for the locals and
[00:04:15] sometimes.
[00:04:19] Why did you choose this way of life? Our parents
[00:04:22] and grandparents used to work with weapons. Because
[00:04:25] the area we live in, the state offers nothing.
[00:04:29] There's nothing. We don't have a state. We don't have hospitals, we don't have
[00:04:32] job opportunities, we have nothing. And all our lives, my parents, grandparents,
[00:04:36] aircraft and helicopters, in and great-grandparents are the ones who work in this field.
[00:04:49] The question is, where do these weapons come from? Today,
[00:04:52] the weapons you see here in front of you, we have two sources
[00:04:55] for them. Many people, because of the economic crisis, have started
[00:04:59] selling weapons. I mean, the poor class and the destitute class today
[00:05:03] are selling individual weapons, not heavy or
[00:05:06] medium weapons. They have individual weapons that they are forced to sell in order
[00:05:09] to live, and this is because of the economic crisis. And also,
[00:05:13] today we are receiving Ukrainian
[00:05:16] weapons. You know that at the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine
[00:05:19] and the war, NATO gave the Ukrainians weapons. These weapons were then
[00:05:23] taken by traders to Turkey,
[00:05:26] Iraq, and from Iraq they also come to Syria and Lebanon. We now find
[00:05:30] in the market today that we as traders are being offered weapons,
[00:05:33] medium and light weapons. They tell us that these
[00:05:37] are Ukrainian NATO weapons and so on. You feel that the piece is still new,
[00:05:40] a clean piece and a weapon. It's good, but its price is higher than
[00:05:44] the price of Lebanese weapons and the weapons available
[00:05:47] in the market, but the weapon is very, very, very good. The Ukrainian
[00:05:52] the market.
[00:05:59] What kind of weapons are coming the most? For example, if
[00:06:02] the weapons coming from Ukraine through Syria
[00:06:05] by land are Kalashnikovs, PKCs, and
[00:06:09] small rifles, all still
[00:06:12] in their original packaging, never used.
[00:06:16] Never.
[00:06:20] People love it. I mean, we have young people who like to buy
[00:06:24] such things. I mean, you tell him this piece came from Ukraine, still in its box, or
[00:06:28] still well-preserved, as they say, they love it. So everything coming in
[00:06:32] is medium-sized, I mean, PKC weapons and smaller, PKC,
[00:06:35] Kalashnikov, and a large number
[00:06:38] of rifles are coming in. I mean,
[00:06:41] small rifles, and there were also sniper
[00:06:44] rifles. No, as for sniper
[00:06:47] rifles, sniper rifles came in, but most of them are still being
[00:06:51] sold in Syria. A few pieces came into Lebanon. Today,
[00:06:54] sniper rifles are in demand in Syria because there is war there, and in Lebanon
[00:06:58] we don't use sniper rifles much. People
[00:07:01] today prefer the machine gun and handgun coming from
[00:07:04] Ukraine, and yes, weapons from Ukraine spreading all
[00:07:08] over the world who turned this country into major arms hub?
[00:07:42] News: The USSR is no more. The republics of the former
[00:07:46] power, with the exception of Georgia and the Baltic states, there are 11 of them,
[00:07:49] have established the Commonwealth of Independent States. Its supreme bodies
[00:07:53] are the Council of Heads of State and the Council of Heads of Government. Borders will be
[00:07:57] open. Control over nuclear weapons is unified.
[00:08:01] The structure and high command of the armed forces remain in their previous
[00:08:04] form until December 30, until the next meeting of leaders in
[00:08:08] Minsk.
[00:09:12] Czechoslovakia and Hungary will return to their homeland in six
[00:09:16] tank divisions. In addition, by decision of the USSR government, all equipment
[00:09:20] and weapons from Hungary and Poland were withdrawn
[00:09:23] here. This was a mass of weapons, a golden
[00:09:27] barrel.
[00:09:35] Ukraine now independent came into possession of, according to the
[00:09:39] most conservative estimates, 900 tanks.
[00:09:42] 1100 armored vehicles, 1800 artillery
[00:09:46] systems, 400
[00:09:49] addition to tens of millions of small arms and billions of rounds
[00:09:53] of ammunition. London's international institute for strategic
[00:09:57] studies said Ukraine's military property was worth around $90
[00:10:00] billion
[00:10:01] dollars.
[00:10:07] Tanks, a gas turbine tank can go 15-20
[00:10:11] km, which...
[00:10:25] Within a month of the USSR's collapse, the new
[00:10:29] Ukrainian state launched a global sell-off of Soviet
[00:10:33] weapons. The first contracts were signed
[00:10:36] shortly after, and in
[00:10:38] 1991,
[00:10:40] series of civil wars broke out in Yugoslavia.
[00:11:05] I saw the breakup of Yugoslavia, I participated
[00:11:08] in
[00:11:09] the war,
[00:11:15] I acquired certain military knowledge
[00:11:19] during my military service and a security course
[00:11:22] in the Pančevo garrison, Military Post
[00:11:25] 2875, under General Mladen
[00:11:28] Bratić.
[00:11:36] In the early 1990s.
[00:11:49] They would arrive in vehicles, armored
[00:11:53] personnel carriers to Umpropora, of that time, so international
[00:11:56] organizations, but people arrived, weapons mainly
[00:12:00] arrived as part
[00:12:03] of flights on planes that were
[00:12:07] at Izetbegović's disposal, it was mostly an Antonov 2
[00:12:10] and it was operated by Ukrainian pilots,
[00:12:13] Ukrainian armament and military equipment, because the connections with
[00:12:17] uh through certain Ukrainian generals reached
[00:12:20] the top of the then Ukrainian authorities, up to
[00:12:24] President Leonid Kuchma, who reached various people in
[00:12:28] the Ministry
[00:12:28] of Defense.
[00:12:34] That would then open up a much bigger question of responsibility
[00:12:38] of the political and state leadership for financing terrorism, for war
[00:12:41] crimes in Vozuća, especially in Central Bosnia,
[00:12:45] that is, against Croats, in Vozuća, against Serbs and so on. The company Astra
[00:12:48] also came with S300, a missile system
[00:12:52] that was a wonder at the time, which was just then. So,
[00:12:55] practically, few countries had it,
[00:12:59] imagine that Ukraine sent one of the two it had at that
[00:13:03] time to Croatia.
[00:13:25] I am not a warmonger, I a peacemaker, eating the dogs, eating the
[00:13:28] cats,
[00:13:31] hogy there you go, all squeaky
[00:13:33] clean,
[00:13:41] the US mid-term elections have come and gone, in the wake of the cycle the
[00:13:45] GoP finds itself mauled and left for roadkill, it is
[00:13:49] already being held as an historic election, however is
[00:13:53] it a change election, is yet to be
[00:13:55] determined,
[00:13:58] what if everything you think you know is only part of the
[00:14:02] story. bold economic moves, high stakes battles on
[00:14:05] the world stage, war and peace, the
[00:14:09] very future of America. the headlines are loud, the
[00:14:13] debates are fierce. now it's time for a closer look.
[00:14:16] know the policy, understand the impact. america first,
[00:14:20] the
[00:14:20] Scottty.
[00:14:34] Heavy weapons were delivered to Bosnia by sea from Odessa,
[00:14:38] the cargo went through the Croatian ports of Rieha and
[00:14:41] split, small arms and ammunition were often delivered by
[00:14:45] aircraft piloted by
[00:14:47] Ukrainiansvo
[00:14:49] During the war in 91-95, there was officially
[00:14:53] an arms import embargo
[00:14:55] on the territory of the SFRY, an embargo that the United
[00:14:59] Nations adopted. However,
[00:15:01] in practice, that embargo was not, was not respected.
[00:15:05] I found out immediately when they were shot down, when that
[00:15:08] Ukrainian Antonov was shot down, it was
[00:15:12] at Plitvice Lakes. It
[00:15:16] looks like a jungle where it crashed, that Antonov
[00:15:19] plane. And it is a transport plane, that's from the Soviet Union
[00:15:23] already, right? Uh. Its task was to transport
[00:15:27] weapons and ammunition for the Fifth
[00:15:30] Muslim Corps from Croatia, either from Pleso Airport in Zagreb, or from Krk, there was
[00:15:34] an airport on the island of Krk. an airport on the island of Krk.
[00:15:37] Leonid Minin, an entrepreneur close to Ukraine's
[00:15:41] top leadership, was one of those who oversaw armed
[00:15:44] shipments. This rare footage shows me in watching a
[00:15:48] small arms demonstration with colleagues.
[00:15:51] We'd never have learned of the existence of this major trafficker of
[00:15:55] death,
[00:15:57] he had, he was the owner of a
[00:16:01] hotel in Cinisello Balsamo.
[00:16:05] And so. This
[00:16:07] hotel had the presidential suite on the top floor, that is,
[00:16:11] a presidential suite, not a four-star hotel, but it had its
[00:16:14] little room. So he picked up
[00:16:17] prostitutes that he took to his room in his
[00:16:21] suite. So one of
[00:16:23] these was not paid, she went to the
[00:16:27] police and told them, dear, go there and
[00:16:31] you will find this Minin with other
[00:16:34] prostitutes.
[00:16:37] in police in his room they found piles of cocaine,
[00:16:40] $150,000 in cash, diamonds and documents in
[00:16:44] he was arrested and these huge two
[00:16:48] suitcases were found with him, which contained all his documentation. He trusted no one, he carried
[00:16:51] that with him.
[00:16:55] Here's one of the documents from that briefcase, an arms order
[00:16:58] signed by the Code divoir's minister of defense. Five million rounds of
[00:17:02] ammunition, 10,00 grenades, thousands of automatic
[00:17:05] rifles and grenade launchers. This documentation
[00:17:08] was exactly the key to Liberian
[00:17:12] exports, the key to
[00:17:14] exports to the Democratic Republic of Congo, to
[00:17:18] Burkina Faso, to Eritrea and Ethiopia.
[00:18:07] timber enterprise officially at conducted logging
[00:18:11] operations in Liberia, but in fact as confirmed by a
[00:18:15] UN special commission, it supplied arms to president Charles
[00:18:18] Taylor, a ruthless dictator guilty of genocide
[00:18:22] against his country's citizens. I then went to Monrovia in Liberia,
[00:18:26] I went to visit the factory to try to find other
[00:18:29] documentation there, but at the same time it supplied
[00:18:33] arms to the RUF rebels
[00:18:36] through the mediation of the president of
[00:18:39] Liberia,
[00:18:40] Taylor,
[00:18:44] this is not a military
[00:18:47] cool, this is pure civilian of
[00:18:50] rising,
[00:18:55] using dummy companies, minion acquired weapons through the Uker
[00:18:59] Spetz export corporation, a government entity, which in the
[00:19:02] early 2000s was the main supplier of weapons to African
[00:19:06] dictators.
[00:20:07] of weapons, Ukrainian war barons, chartered aircraft, which were registered
[00:20:11] in offshore zones.
[00:20:14] Most armed shipments were carried a BAC-11, owned by
[00:20:18] an Israeli businessman of Ukrainian origin, Leonid
[00:20:21] Minin.
[00:20:25] Registered in the Cayen, it was operated by Limad, a firm registered in
[00:20:29] Monaco. These are photos of one of the airlines
[00:20:32] that arrived in Liberia, circumventing the UN Arms
[00:20:36] embargo. stagged full of weapons boxes,
[00:20:39] the plane was owned by Leonard Minnin. The
[00:20:43] first delivery arranged by Minnin in March
[00:20:45] 1999, was a cargo of 68 tons
[00:20:49] of...
[00:20:58] RPGs sevens and related
[00:21:01] ordinance, asterla 3 and
[00:21:04] met systems and 80 related missiles, the
[00:21:07] arms were bought from the ukrainian arms marketing
[00:21:11] company, yucer pets export, minions and his
[00:21:14] business partners names and their involvement in UK
[00:21:17] exports arms deliveries during
[00:21:20] investigations into arms dealing in the middle east payments of the
[00:21:24] shipment show the global nature of the arms deal
[00:21:27] arranged by men, italian prosecution
[00:21:31] authorities were directed reportedly by men
[00:21:34] himself to a Hungarian bank account owned by
[00:21:38] a company alligidly related to Menin. further payments
[00:21:42] from the same amount were made to various companies
[00:21:45] including yoker spet
[00:21:48] export and
[00:22:03] The scale of the trade is astonishing, hundreds of thousands of tons of contraband were plied between the
[00:22:06] continents, for some odd reason it went
[00:22:10] unnoticed for many years. The
[00:22:13] second arms delivery arranged by minn was rooted
[00:22:16] via Codevoir rather than Burkina.
[00:22:20] so the arms deal consisted of 130
[00:22:24] 13 tons of arms brokered through
[00:22:27] the Ukrainian state owned company
[00:22:31] and included 10,500
[00:22:34] ak 47 asalt rifel,
[00:22:38] 120 sniper guns, 100
[00:22:41] grenade launcher, night vision equipment and 8
[00:22:45] million rounds of
[00:22:47] these arms was delived in July
[00:22:50] 2000, apparently destened for Code
[00:22:53] divoir using an end user certificate
[00:22:57] signed on May 26th, 2000s by a senior
[00:23:01] official of the Ministry of Defense. The officials mentioned in the documents,
[00:23:05] their patrons in Keve and Minon and his friends didn't seem to be on intelligence
[00:23:09] agency radars. Min had easily obtained numerous
[00:23:12] international passports found during the raid on his hotel room in
[00:23:16] Italy.
[00:23:20] we were saying that, a Ukrainian passport, an Israeli service passport,
[00:23:23] eh, so he also had that, which allowed him to
[00:23:27] travel very easily, but it indicates that he had good
[00:23:31] connections, so there too
[00:23:34] one should ask why he had all these passports
[00:23:38] that they then denied, because "oh, but we Germans never
[00:23:42] gave him a passport," he had it. during his
[00:23:44] investigation the journalist concluded that without the support of
[00:23:48] us top brass... "It would have been impossible implement such a
[00:23:52] colossal trade of Ukrainian arms. Through the black
[00:23:55] market, they managed to solve some sensitive
[00:23:58] issues. We got our hands on this
[00:24:02] immense quantity of documents that allowed us to understand, the
[00:24:06] proofs are in the waybills, the proofs are in the payments, the proofs are
[00:24:10] in the bank files,
[00:24:13] but there are also all the reports that these people maintained
[00:24:17] among themselves in
[00:24:21] doing their business,
[00:24:23] business of various kinds, here the illegal
[00:24:26] arms market is
[00:24:29] hidden, secret precisely because it is illegal, and he
[00:24:33] we found in this documentation that he
[00:24:36] was indeed the author of these
[00:24:39] arms sales, but he was not
[00:24:43] he was also the one who maintained relationships with a series of
[00:24:46] arms traffickers, for example with Marc Rich,
[00:24:50] the famous arms trafficker pardoned by Clinton
[00:24:53] in the last days of his presidency.
[00:24:56] Minnen's Billionaire Live Style, dalliances with African terrorists and
[00:25:00] connections with politicians and government officials all around the world, even
[00:25:04] inspired Hollywood. The film's story is quite accurate,
[00:25:08] but unlike Nicholas Cage's character, cops didn't go after
[00:25:11] Minnin. Despite overwhelming evidence, an
[00:25:15] Italian court only charged him with possession of drugs and
[00:25:18] diamonds. in Italy, justice is rather
[00:25:22] slow. There are poor people who wait years to get
[00:25:26] justice. Mr. Minin manages to get an appeal, then
[00:25:29] the Supreme Court
[00:25:33] where he is acquitted in less than
[00:25:37] a year, this is disturbing. I must
[00:25:40] say that we are trying to understand what happened to him, it is not well known
[00:25:44] what happened
[00:25:45] to him.
[00:25:50] only Minnin was a link in a chain of interested and very
[00:25:54] powerful parties, so powerful that just for them, the
[00:25:57] Ukrainian parliament adopted special laws, for instance,
[00:26:01] law number 19.
[00:27:02] on the horizon a boat,
[00:27:06] on the boat people
[00:27:08] waved their hands, approaching, approaching,
[00:27:12] then
[00:27:14] the shooting began, it turned out that their technique of
[00:27:17] capture was well-rehearsed, one group climbed onto
[00:27:21] the ship's board, the second covered them with fire, everything that
[00:27:25] could be was shot through, and additionally there were two shots from an RPG,
[00:27:28] one fell into the sea, splashed, not reaching
[00:27:32] the board, the second hit the board, but did not
[00:27:35] explode, from this I have long
[00:27:39] concluded: the pirates could not have known the nature of
[00:27:42] the cargo, the pirates themselves, because if
[00:27:46] they had known that there
[00:27:50] was a huge amount of explosives being transported, they would never have
[00:27:53] shot, because 10,000
[00:27:56] tons, if they exploded, they would have made
[00:27:59] a large crater in the sea along with these pirates,
[00:28:03] when they saw,
[00:28:07] went down into the hold, looked,
[00:28:09] of course, the pirates' eyes gleamed with joy, because
[00:28:13] there had never been such a haul.
[00:29:05] ban territories, let's go,
[00:29:09] crimeia here in Iran, we've traveled
[00:29:12] to Lugansk, and it's happening right here in China,
[00:29:16] it's actually quite a beautiful day here,
[00:29:20] ignored stories, I'm
[00:29:22] listening, thank you so much, thank you so much, so great to
[00:29:26] see you, really, God bless you, forbidden
[00:29:29] questions, I'm asking them, what's a free country? Are you
[00:29:32] worried, are you scared? we Rusky, are you a dictator? Are
[00:29:36] you thinking about creating something? Not planning to run for
[00:29:39] president. We will show you what they
[00:29:50] United States. I did not know that. That's the
[00:29:53] Sanchez effect. Tens of millions are now watching, and
[00:29:57] we're just getting
[00:29:58] started.
[00:30:28] France is on high alert as hundreds of thousands take
[00:30:32] to streets in a fresh wave of protest against President Emmanuel
[00:30:35] Macron's government.
[00:30:38] Let us see Olashki as a spark in a
[00:30:42] world of darkness
[00:30:44] capable of illuminating the bass into
[00:30:47] humanity. First Lady Milania Trump praises the
[00:30:51] cooperation shown by Moscow and Kiev during humanitarian
[00:30:54] operation she brokered for the embattle city of Baloshi.
[00:30:58] Russia's envoy will pass a letter from