Washington: Pakistan has sold munitions worth $900 million over the past year to Ukraine in a secret deal under pressure from the US, which in turn helped Islamabad secure an IMF bailout.
The so-called “bombs for bailout” deal, first reported in investigative website The Intercept, forced Islamabad from its neutral position in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, even as Washington prioritised protecting Ukraine over furthering democracy in Pakistan.
The Intercept said records detailing the arms transactions were leaked to it earlier this year by a source within the Pakistani military.
The documents describe munitions sales agreed to between the US and Pakistan from the summer of 2022 to the spring of 2023, it added. The Biden administration and IMF have denied the story, but the Intercept said its reporting was based on documents outlining the money trail, American and Pakistani contracts, licensing, and requisition documents related to US-brokered deals to buy Pakistani military weapons for Ukraine.
“Some of the documents were authenticated by matching the signature of an American brigadier general with his signature on publicly available mortgage records in the United States; by matching the Pakistani documents with corresponding American documents; and by reviewing publicly available but previously unreported Pakistani disclosures of arms sales to the US posted by the State Bank of Pakistan,” the investigative website said