It will come as a surprise to no one that Ukraine became the world’s leading arms importer between 2020 and 2024, up from fourth place at the end of 2023; its imports increased almost 100-fold compared with the previous five years, which were nonetheless marked by the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and a latent war in the Donbas. This new data is at the top of the annual report on trade in military equipment published on Monday, March, 10 by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). For its part, France has consolidated its position as the second largest exporter (9.6% of the total), ahead of Russia (7.8%) but far behind the United States (43%).

The volume of imports-exports has remained more or less at the same level since 2010, but there has been a reorientation, especially from 2020 onward: What is destined for Europe and the Americans (the US, Brazil, Canada) goes less to Asia-Oceania (-21%) and the Middle East, two regions where most countries, in a phase of rearmament in the face of multiple threats (China, Iran), had massively rearmed, most notably Japan in recent years.

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