NEW YORK, October 27. /TASS/. Ukraine received Turkish-made cluster munitions in July, while previously only deliveries from the US had been reported, the US portal Defense One has said with reference to Ukrainian import data collected by the Import Genius aggregator.
Reportedly, 18 shipments of M483A1 cluster munitions with Turkish markings arrived in Ukraine on July 31. Each of the 155-millimeter projectiles contains 88 submunitions, which enables them to hit larger areas than standard ammunition. Kiev had received the Turkish cluster munitions just weeks after the deliveries of similar weapons from the United States began.
The media resource has been unable to find out whether the Turkish authorities were involved in the decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian import documents, the provider was not Turkey, but the Romanian Defense Ministry-owned trading company Romtehnica.
According to Defense One's calculations, Ukraine purchased 6,074 rounds of ammunition at a price of $2,972 each, manufactured between 1994 and 2022 and upgraded before being shipped to Ukraine. An analyst at the defense research and consulting firm Forecast International told Defense One that given the time when the munitions were produced, Kiev could have bought them at a 25% markup.
Both Turkey and Ukraine previously denied the supplies of Turkish cluster munitions to Ukraine. Foreign Policy magazine mentioned such deliveries in January. The story claimed that Turkey had been supplying Ukraine with such ammunition since the end of 2022. Defense One points out that the database contains information only regarding July deliveries, which leaves room for speculations that the ammunition Foreign Policy mentioned had been delivered by other means or that the available data was incomplete.