Almost two-thirds of the arms imported by European members of NATO over the past five years were produced by the US.

Axar.az reports that citing Financial Times, arms imports by the European nations more than doubled between 2020 and 2024 compared with the previous five years, as the region responded to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). The US supplied 64 per cent of these arms, up from 52 per cent between 2015-2019.

Sipri’s annual analysis of global arms transfers also underlined how the US had cemented its position as the world’s top arms exporter, increasing its share of exports from 35 per cent to 43 per cent over the five-year period.

Ukraine, meanwhile, became the world’s largest importer of major arms over that timeframe, with imports rising nearly 100 times as the country sought to fight off Russia’s forces. For the first time in two decades, the largest share of US arms went to Europe rather than the Middle East, although Saudi Arabia was the top single recipient of US weapons.

The data also showed that the top 10 arms exporters in the past five years were the same as those in the previous period, but that Russia fell to third place behind France as exports slid. Italy jumped from tenth to sixth place.

Russian arms exports fell by 64 per cent between 2015 and 2019, and 2020 and 2024, as the Ukraine war “accelerated” the decline in Moscow’s ability to export weaponry.

Two-thirds of Russian arms exports went to India, China and Kazakhstan, according to the research.

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