United States Will Send Confiscated Iranian Weapons and Ammunition to Ukraine

Iranian weapons confiscated by US CENTCOM. (Source: United States Department of Defense)

JAKARTA - The United States will send thousands of seized Iranian weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, a step seen as helping to alleviate the shortages facing the country's military in the face of a Russian invasion.

United States Central Command (US CENTCOM) has transferred more than one million rounds of seized Iranian ammunition to Ukrainian armed forces, with the delivery taking place Monday, US CENTCOM said.

"The government obtained ownership of this ammunition on July 20, 2023, through a Department of Justice civil forfeiture claim against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)," said the statement, reported by CNN October 5.

Previously, the Justice Department announced in March that it was seizing one million rounds of Iranian ammunition, thousands of fuses for rocket-propelled grenades, and thousands of pounds of propellant for rocket-propelled grenades that the Navy seized from Iran while en route to Yemen.

"This ammunition was initially seized by US Central Command naval forces from the stateless dhow MARWAN 1 in transit, December 9, 2022. The ammunition was transferred from the IRGC to the Houthis in Yemen in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2216," the statement said.

In the aftermath, President Biden's Administration has for months been considering how to legally send seized weapons stored at CENTCOM facilities in the Middle East to Ukraine.

Over the past year, the US Navy has seized thousands of Iranian assault rifles and more than a million rounds of ammunition from ships Iran uses to ship weapons to Yemen.

The seizures, often carried out with regional partner forces, target small, stateless vessels on routes historically used to smuggle weapons to the Houthis in Yemen.

In mid-January, the US assisted French forces in seizing 3,000 assault rifles sent from Iran to Yemen, as well as 23 anti-tank missiles. After the confiscation, the US took custody of the confiscated weapons.

The illegal weapons ban caps a two-month period during which the US and its partners seized a total of 5,000 weapons and 1.6 million rounds of ammunition, according to US CENTCOM.

Justice and Defense Department officials have been working together to find legal avenues to send weapons to Ukraine, officials said, and one way is through civil confiscation authorities in the US.

"Ultimately, Ukraine needs a variety of supplies for the war effort, and while this is not a solution to all of Ukraine's military needs, it will provide critical support," said Jonathan Lord, senior fellow, and director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security pushed for the US to send seized Iranian weapons to Ukraine in an opinion piece in February.

Lord added that the move could also impact Iran's relations with Russia.

"For more than a year, Iranian UAVs in the hands of the Russian military have been used to attack and kill Ukrainian civilians," Lord explained.

"There is poetic justice in Ukraine utilizing confiscated Iranian weapons to defend its people from Russian invasion and criminal violations. Moreover, this policy may put greater pressure on the developing relations between Moscow and Tehran," he stressed.