The lavish deliveries of ‘lethal aid’ from the US, UK and other NATO countries to Ukraine amid its conflict with Russia have led to marketplaces where some of those weapons can be purchased popping up on the dark web, RT Russian has learned.
The Ukrainian traders claim to offer not just small arms or body armor there, but also such sophisticated hardware as Javelin and NLAW anti-tank systems or Phoenix Ghost and Switchblade explosive drones.
That said, it’s not possible to completely rule out that the sellers actually did not have the said weapons in stock, as the RT investigators did not complete the purchase. Scamming schemes are common for dark web marketplaces.
RT was able to contact one of the said sellers through a marketplace on the darknet and agree the purchase, for a price of $4,000, of a Phoenix Ghost loitering munition, which had been developed by the US especially for the needs of the Ukrainian military.
The journalists, who pretended to be interested buyers, said they were also interested in a batch of American M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel mines, but were told that those were out of stock.