The US Central Command on Wednesday said that it has sent over one million rounds of previously seized Iranian ammunition to Ukraine. The US confiscated the ammunition in 2022 from a vessel that was allegedly shipping weapons from Iran to the Houthi rebel group in Yemen.
“The US government transferred approximately 1.1 million 7.62mm rounds to the Ukrainian armed forces,” the military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said and added that it had “obtained ownership of these munitions on July 20, 2023, through the Department of Justice’s civil forfeiture claims,” Al Jazeera reported.
The Ukrainian military awaits more weapons and aid from the US and its Western allies. The Justice Department, in March, had announced that it was seeking forfeiture of the weapons the US seized from Iran.
“The munitions were being transferred from the IRGC to the Houthis in Yemen in violation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2216,” CENTCOM said, CNN reported.
The Biden administration had been trying to work out how to legally send the seized weapons to Ukraine. The weapons are stored in CENTCOM facilities across the Middle East.
Military assistance from the US has played an important role in Ukraine's efforts to fight Russian forces. In the meantime, criticism of the US and other Western nations providing aid to Ukraine is gaining steam raising questions on the durability of the support.
In the meantime, Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for seeking additional funds from the US to hold polls in the war-torn country.
In an interview with Fox News, Ramaswamy defended his statement that he would cut aid to Ukraine if elected as the US president.
“This (Ukraine) is a country that has banned 11 opposition parties. This is a country that has consolidated all media into one state media arm, whose president just last week was praising a Nazi in his own ranks, has threatened the United States not to hold its own normal elections this year unless it gets more funding,” Ramaswamy said.
-- With inputs from PTI