Russian analyst notes greatest flow of weapons to Middle East comes from Ukraine

MOSCOW, March 15. /TASS/. The greatest flow of weapons and other military hardware to the Middle East is from Ukraine’s territory, the president of the Middle East Institute, Yevgeny Satanovsky, told TASS in an interview.

"The greatest flow of weapons to the Middle East is from Ukraine, of course, and to a certain extent, from Belarus," he said.

Satanovsky also commented on media rumors about the involvement of a private Russian military company in current events in Libya.

"I’ve never heard anything about any private Russian military companies from any trustworthy source," he said. "There are private military companies around the world. The Chinese have them, and so do the British, the French and many others. Private military companies or the French Foreign Legion have had many employees of Russian descent since 1991," he said.

Satanovsky recalled that the activity of many foreign military units in Libya failed to receive proper media coverage.

"In Libya today French and Italian commandoes fight on the Khalifa Haftar’s side, but everybody keeps quiet about that. There are British and US units on his opponents' side. There is everybody," Satanovsky said.

"It is very likely there may be some people who can be heard using Russian swear words. But swear words are no way to tell between, say a Ukrainian mercenary or a Russian born in the Smolensk Region. The so-called ‘Russian hackers’ turned out to be Ukrainian just recently. Is there anything else to say?"