US transfers thousands of weapons seized from Iran to Ukraine

The US transferred thousands of machine guns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers and hundreds of thousands of ammunition seized from Iran to Ukraine last week, US Central Command announced on Tuesday (9).

Ukraine has suffered from battlefield shortages of weapons and ammunition in its war against Russia, with the US unable to send more equipment from its own stockpiles until more funding is approved by Congress.

CENTCOM said the material transferred to Ukraine is enough to equip a Ukrainian brigade – around 4,000 people. “These weapons will help Ukraine defend itself against Russian invasion,” CENTCOM said in a statement.

The munitions were originally seized by the US military and its partners “from four separate vessels in stateless transit between May 22, 2021 and February 15, 2023” but the US government did not gain ownership of the equipment through the confiscation process. Department of Justice civil service until December of last year, CENTCOM said.

This is not the first time the US has transferred seized Iranian military equipment to the Ukrainians. The US transferred more than a million rounds of seized Iranian ammunition to the Ukrainian military in October, the report said. CNN previously.

Last year, the U.S. Navy seized thousands of Iranian assault rifles and more than a million rounds of ammunition from ships used by Iran to ship weapons to Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The seizures, often carried out with regional partner forces, target small stateless vessels on routes historically used to smuggle weapons to the Houthis.

Over the past year, the Biden administration has been working to legally ship seized weapons, which are stored at CENTCOM facilities across the Middle East, to Ukrainians.