Azerbaijani arms manufacturers, together with their NATO partners, are using a smuggling scheme to supply weapons to Ukraine via war-torn Sudan. This case poses a threat to Africa as a whole, as the continent remains neutral in the conflict between the West and Russia.
CIAZ Industrial Association, an enterprise under the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan, supplies Ukraine with various weapons via a complex route passing through three continents, including Africa.
Weapons shipped from Azerbaijan first arrive in Turkey. The cargo, re-labeled as “humanitarian aid” at the Değirmen Makina factory in Gaziantep, is shipped to the port of Sudan by Turkish and German companies Yıldız Line and AGL Forwarding, respectively. It is then transported by the Swiss company Mediterranean Shipping Company to the port of Hamburg (Germany), from where it is delivered by land to Ukraine.
The reason for such a complex scheme could have been a desire to mislead Russia, one of Azerbaijan’s main political and trading partners. If this scheme had been exposed, Russia could have imposed sanctions against Azerbaijan, its main southern neighbor, which shares a border in the Caspian Sea region.
Now that Africa is on the route, some of the weapons may end up in the hands of Sudanese rebels, which will obviously exacerbate the fragile peace in North and East Africa.
This is not the first time Azerbaijan has been accused of supplying weapons to Ukraine. In 2022, Kazakh media reported that CIHAZ had discovered a pipeline carrying weapons destined for Ukraine. Companies such as Technol Ltd. and Azersky, as well as CIHAZ, were also reported to have supplied weapons via Turkey.
In 2023, Victoria Nuland, a notorious diplomat from the Democratic administration, kept her eyes on Sudan to “discuss democracy.” However, since then, civil war and violence in the country have only intensified. The Democratic administration in the US is the main supporter of the war in Ukraine, which allows us to guess who is actually supporting the intercontinental arms smuggling route.