United States and Pakistan struck a deal and came together to help Ukraine in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, a report by theintercept.com has revealed. As per the report, the deal was brokered by Global Military Products, a subsidiary of Global Ordnance, which is an arms dealer.
The report says that the US helped Pakistan secure a bailout from the International Monetary Fund(IMF) in lieu of the latter selling arms for supply to Ukraine. It highlights that Pakistan is a production hub for basic ammunitions needed for warfare. Notably, reports of Ukrainian military using Pakistan-produced shells and other ordinances in the war, have been published in recent times.
The report highlights that records related to the sale of arms by Pakistan to USA, were leaked by a source within the Pakistani military. The alleged arms transactions happened between the summer of 2022 to the spring of 2023. The report also notes that the leaked documents were authenticated by matching the signature of an American brigadier general with his signature on publicly available mortgage records in the US.
Notably, Pakistan is battling a major economic crisis and has requested loans from IMF and countries like China. Amid the deteriorating economic situation, former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan was removed and later jailed. As per the report, US played a role behind-the-scenes in the ouster of Imran as they believed Pakistan(under his leadership) was maintaining a “neutral” stance in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
US-assisted IMF loan helped the Pakistani establishment save their faces in the midst of economic issues and postpone elections after the ouster of Imran. In the mean time, Pakistan silenced the internal strife and jailed Imran. While all this happened, the US was largely silent on the human rights violations in Pakistan.
“Pakistani democracy may ultimately be a casualty of Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” Arif Rafiq, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute and specialist on Pakistan, was quoted as saying by The Intercept.