The claim

A news page on Facebook is currently claiming that weapons destined for Ukraine have appeared in Finland.

Our conclusion

The claim is based on a misinterpretation by a news site in late October, which was corrected shortly afterwards. However, some news sites still have the report on their site or on Twitter.

On November 16, a self-proclaimed news and media site on Facebook, whose owner is unknown, reported that weapons destined for Ukraine had appeared in Finland. However, the report is not only two weeks old, but was also based on pure suspicion, which the Finnish police also made clear.

The claim

In mid-November, a page posted the relevant text on Facebook without citing a source, whereupon we received inquiries as to whether this was true:

A screenshot of the post in our inquiries
A screenshot of the post in our inquiries

The text says:

“Assault rifles delivered to Ukraine turned up at criminals’ homes in Finland. The police confirmed this. Weapons from deliveries to Ukraine have also been found in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. They are often smuggled by rocker gangs.”

Source: Facebook

However, the text was already posted on Twitter by mdr on October 30th, two weeks earlier, in exactly this wording:

This makes it clear that the Facebook page simply “rehashed” a two-week-old message in order to apparently provoke outraged comments. Not very serious. But what was behind the report?

There are rumors, but no evidence

Of course, it is conceivable that weapons intended for Ukraine could be seized by dirty dealers and sold to other countries. But rumors and assumptions are not proof, and hints are only hints until there is solid evidence - because all too often hints can be completely wrong.

However, this did not bother many press outlets because they relied on a report by the DPA, which in turn was based on a report by the Finnish broadcaster YLE, which in the first version claimed that the NBI had said that criminals in Finland had Ukrainian weapons, However, in a corrected version, he wrote that the NBI “only” fears this.

But first things first:
On October 30, YLE reported that criminals in Finland had obtained Ukrainian weapons. A little later, the site reported the message (see HERE ): “ Note added on October 31, 2022 at 9:08 a.m. to clarify that the suspicions are based on preliminary information .” The text of the article was also changed, as the colleagues from “ Correctiv ” pointed out:

MIMIKAMA
Old and new version of the article, source: Correctiv

On November 1, the Finnish police also clarified that it was only YLE's guesses based on an interview with an NBI employee, who said that in the long term it is possible that at some point weapons destined for Ukraine will also be found are, could fall into the hands of criminals in Finland (see HERE ).

“Police seize numerous unlicensed weapons from members of organized crime every year and are aware that individual actors are interested in weapons used in war zones.
The police have indications that members of organized crime may try to acquire weapons from Ukraine in the long term. […]
Based on our expert's questioning, the impression may have arisen that weapons have already been smuggled into Finland. However, we have no evidence of such a phenomenon. “We wanted to show that there is a possibility that criminals operating in Finland are trying to obtain weapons from conflict areas.”

Source: Police of Finland

The NBI has also identified individual members of organized crime who traveled to Ukraine during the war, which of course supports the suspicion that they were there because of the arms trade, but there is no evidence of this yet.

Most German press organs, such as Focus , t-online and rnd , have now corrected their articles, while n-tv still has an uncorrected version - although a correction is urgently needed, as a certain politician is on Twitter uses exactly that article to rail against Ukraine and the EU.

Conclusion

The claim is based on a misinterpretation by a news site in late October, which was corrected shortly afterwards. However, some news sites still have the report on their site or on Twitter.

Additional source:

Corrective
Also interesting: A contribution from ARTE that looks at several opinions on the topic of “EU sanctions against Russia” and also shows that not everything worked so well!
Are the EU sanctions against Russia effective?


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )