Ukraine would have lost fewer lives if all schemes and loopholes for Russia's evasion of sanctions had been carefully tracked down and completely closed, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

“According to some data, up to 95% of the foreign-produced critical components found in Russian weapons destroyed in Ukraine come from Western countries. These are not government actions but rather private firms, and the exports entering Russia are not necessarily military goods but also dual-use or civilian products and even domestic appliances,” Kuleba said on X.

He stressed that eventually these weapons arrive in Ukraine to commit war crimes, kill people and destroy critical infrastructure.

“Ukraine would require less assistance and would lose fewer lives if all of the murky schemes and sanction evasion loopholes were thoroughly tracked down and completely closed. The West has the best financial intelligence, experts, and specialized bodies that have the capacity to track down such schemes and disrupt them,” the minister said.

According to him, a lion’s share of responsibility lies with the companies themselves: they must control the end-users of the goods they sell abroad and make sure that their spare parts do not end up in weapons killing people.

“Disrupting supplies of these spare parts to Russia requires large-scale, concerted efforts by the private and public sectors. But it will save the lives of many civilians in Ukraine and disarray Putin’s war machine,” Kuleba said.