STOCKHOLM, March 13. /TASS/. The United States and Russia have been the largest and second largest arms exporters over the past three decades, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in a press release on Monday.

According to the SIPRI’s new data on global arms transfers in 2018-2022, Russia’s arms exports declined by 31% in the period against the previous five years, while Ukraine became the world’s third largest arms importer in 2022.

Global arms exports have long been dominated by the US and Russia, but the gap between the two has been widening significantly, while that between Russia and France, ranked third for arms supplies, has narrowed, the SIPRI said.

US arms sales rose by 14% between 2013-2017 and 2018-2022, and the US accounted for 40% of global arms exports in 2018-2022. Russia’s arms exports declined by 31% in the same period, while its share of global arms exports fell from 22% to 16%, and that of France rose from 7.1% to 11%.

Last year, Ukraine became the world’s third biggest arms importer. In 1991-2021, the former Soviet republic imported few major arms, but as a result of military assistance from the US and many European countries it became the third largest importer of major arms during 2022, trailing Qatar and India, and the 14th largest for 2018-2022. Ukraine’s share of global arms imports in the five-year period amounted to 2%, the SIPRI said.

"Due to concerns about how the supply of combat aircraft and long-range missiles could further escalate the war in Ukraine, NATO states declined Ukraine’s requests for them in 2022. At the same time, they supplied such arms to other states involved in conflict, particularly in the Middle East and South Asia," writes Pieter Wezeman, Senior Researcher with the SIPRI Arms Transfers Program.