2023-06-21 17:59:00
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The Swiss authorities have completed an investigation into the appearance of Eagle I armored vehicles in Ukraine and found that the equipment was transferred to Kyiv by the ex-director of a private German company in violation of re-export rules. As transmits RBCannounced by the government of the confederation.
The investigation was launched after media publications appeared in March that an Eagle armored vehicle manufactured by the Swiss company Mowag was seen on the territory of Ukraine.
The Danish government explains that in the 1990s, 36 Eagle I were transferred to the Danish army, and in 2012 Denmark applied for the re-export of 27 of them to a private German company. In 2013, the Swiss authorities issued a permit, and at the end of 2018, the German company received these armored vehicles. The recipient also undertook to obtain permission from the Swiss authorities to re-export the equipment.
An investigation assisted by the German authorities determined that 11 of these vehicles were transferred to Ukraine with the permission of the German export control authorities. At the same time, the ex-director of the German company did not receive permission from the Swiss authorities, justifying this by saying that the vehicles were “demilitarized”, and this was documented by the German Ministry of Defense. It is specified that protective structures and bulletproof glass were removed from the cars.
However, the Swiss authorities stress that, under German law, demilitarization does not affect the applicability of the War Materials Act and therefore the validity of the non-re-export declaration. The authorities found the former director of the German company responsible for violating the law and decided to ban him from exporting military materials “due to the high risk of its transfer to an undesirable final recipient.”
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