Egypt nearly supplied rockets to Russia, agreed to arm Ukraine instead, leak show

[ancianita]

Source: Washington Post

By Missy Ryan, Evan Hill and Siobhán O'Grady
April 17, 2023 at 7:07 p.m. EDT

Egypt paused a plan to secretly supply rockets to Russia last month following talks with senior U.S. officials and instead decided to produce artillery ammunition for Ukraine, according to five leaked U.S. intelligence documents that have not been previously reported.

The Washington Post last week reported on another document that exposed a covert scheme by Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi in February to provide Russia with up to 40,000 122mm Sakr-45 rockets, which can be used in Russian multiple-launch rocket launchers. Sisi instructed his subordinates to keep the project secret “to avoid problems with the West,” the document said.

But the new documents, which The Post obtained from a trove of material allegedly posted on Discord by a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, appear to show Sisi in early March backing away from plans to supply Moscow, a move that would have represented a major rebuke to Cairo’s most generous Western ally, the United States.

Egypt, though it has a long-standing diplomatic and military relationship with Russia, has for decades been a principal American ally in the Middle East and receives more than $1 billion a year in U.S. military aid.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/17/russia-ukraine-egypt-weapons-leaked-documents/

[republianmushroom]

1. If any country supplies Russia with arms will there be sanctions ?

If our so called allies do then they are not our allies.

[LiberalLovinLug]

2. Makes you wonder how many other countries are secretly supplying Russia with arms

Isolationists in the MAGA movement don't understand how giving aid to other countries like this billion in aid is worth it. In times like these, America can call in a favour they wouldn't have been able to make otherwise.

[ancianita]

3. It does. But I'm pretty sure we've got monitoring systems in place that go with sanctions.

MAGA don't know how to govern because they don't know law, don't want democacy, and/or how foreign relations work to improve free world relations. They're guided by strongman rule-of-men approaches, and by conflict driven leadership domestically to set up a similar strong man minority rule.

Egypt is smart enough to know which countries to stick with when facing climate problems, and it wants to stay in good standing with the strongest nations internationally. They got caught, so now they and other stealth arms traffickers are on notice. It's up to them and their future interests to decide whose side they're going to be on.