Fact-check: Has Ukraine supplied Hamas militants with NATO weapons?
Some social media users and Russian officials are saying Hamas militants are using weapons supplied by Kyiv. However, there is no concrete evidence to establish a link between Hamas’ military arsenal and Ukraine.
ADVERTISEMENTIs there a direct link between the Israel-Hamas war and Ukraine? Some social media users and Russian officials have been saying Hamas militants are using Western-sent weapons supplied by Kyiv.
“Kyiv resells NATO weapons to radical groups,” said one account on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“The weapons handed over to the regime in Ukraine are being actively used in Israel,” said Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian President and Vladimir Putin’s close ally on his official Telegram account.
US Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Green, known for spreading conspiracy theories, also echoed this accusation on the social media platform X.
A fake BBC and Bellingcat report
One video that’s been shared a lot is a fake BBC report claiming the investigative media Bellingcat found evidence of weapons trafficking to Gaza from Ukraine.
But in reality, it’s an imitation copying the BBC’s distinctive logo and text in order to dupe social media users into thinking it is a legitimate report.
Bellingcat was quick to deny having ever published such a report tweeting: “We’ve reached no such conclusions or made any such claims.”
Eliot Higgins, the Amsterdam-based organisation’s founder, noted the claims have been amplified by pro-Russian social media users.
“It’s unclear if this is a Russian government disinformation campaign or a grassroots effort, but it’s 100% fake,” he said on X.
“The video is 100% fake. Neither BBC News nor Bellingcat have reported that,” wrote Shayan Sardarizadeh, a reporter with BBC Verify, the media’s fact-checking unit.
Creating these fake reports that imitate legitimate news outlets has become a common online tool for spreading disinformation.
Euronews was also recently a target of a pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign which falsely claimed we published a report accusing Ukrainian refugees of attacking a man in Germany after mistaking his Slovenian flag for a Russian one.
The accusations that Kyiv is selling Western-sent weapons on the black market are nothing new and have yet to be proven.
Today, there is absolutely no concrete evidence to establish a link between Hamas’ military arsenal and Ukraine, according to multiple arms experts.
Ukrainian officials have dismissed the rumour that its country’s arms have somehow found their way into the hands of Hamas fighters.
The country’s military intelligence agency posted on its official Facebook page, accusing Moscow of plotting a disinformation campaign around these claims.
