The Impact of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict on Arms Trade

The global landscape of armed conflict in 2024-25. continued to deteriorate. The most marked change in armed conflict has been the return of large-scale conventional interstate warfare in Europe and state-led military aggression in the Middle East. Since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has been going on for more than three years, the depletion of war material reserves on both sides has reached alarming levels, so Ukraine has been receiving generous aid from European countries and the USA. In addition to tanks, vehicles, artillery pieces, and missile systems, the greatest demand is for mortar ammunition, artillery projectiles, and rockets of Western systems that have already been delivered. Given that the global order is changing rapidly and that Russia, for now, does not intend to unilaterally end the conflict with Ukraine, Western countries, primarily NATO members, are demanding an enormous increase in military allocations for defense budgets, which range up to 800 billion euros (dollars). All this leads to an even wider escalation of the conflict, with an uncertain outcome. This, however, altered the global arms trade situation, leading to Ukraine becoming the world's largest arms importer. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is in the period 2020-2024. identified 162 countries as recipients of weapons. The top five recipients of arms were Ukraine, India, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, which together account for 35% of total arms imports. Arms imports to Ukraine increased nearly 100-fold compared to the period 2015–2019. The paper shows the obvious change of events in the field of arms trade, with a special emphasis on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.