Ukraine is selling weapons to the Middle East, including to the Taliban* movement in Afghanistan, which is under United Nations sanctions for terrorist activities, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.
"Now they say – weapons from Ukraine appear in the Middle East. Of course, they do appear, because they sell them," the head of state said at a meeting with the new composition of the Public Chamber of Russia.
According to Putin, Ukrainians also sell weapons to the Taliban, "and from there [it] goes everywhere".
In addition, President Putin pointed out that Ukraine has the highest level of corruption in the world.
"We have many problems in Russia as well, we are fighting corruption in Russia and in the whole world, but the way Ukraine lived under Ukrainian corruption – there is no such thing in the world, I assure you, there is no such thing in the world," the Russian leader said.
On October 9, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, stated that weapons supplied by NATO to Ukraine for use against Russia have found their way into the hands of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, which is actively using them against Israel, NATO's biggest ally in the Middle East.
Medvedev blamed the "neo-Nazi regime" in Kiev for contributed to the escalation of violence in the Middle East. The official added that the Ukrainian authorities are corrupt and have been selling NATO-supplied weapons to anyone who can pay. He warned that missiles, tanks, and possibly even aircraft from Kiev could end up on the black market and be used by terrorists and rogue states.
On Russia's Economic Transformation
Russia is changing from a "gas station" into a self-sufficient country with a processing production, which makes up 43% in the economy's, Putin said at the event.
"When we are now turning into a country where 43% of our economic growth structure is already processing industries, when we stop, as we were once told [...] that we are a 'gas station' and not an economy, when all this is changing, when we are becoming self-sufficient, then there will be fewer people who want to exclude us from some organizations, and there will be more and more people who want to apologize and invite us to work together in a variety of areas of activity," he stated.
The stronger Russia is in military-technical terms and in other areas, the less desire there will be to exclude the country from any international unions, the president added.
Commenting on the economic situation in the country, Putin said that the economy is functioning as planned and the authorities are not abandoning any plans, including in the social sphere.