by CÉDRIC KARLIKOWSKI of CELLULE 51
The title comes from Heraclitus, whose full fragment 53 reads, in our translation: “War is the father of all things and the king of all things. Some it showed as gods, others as men; some it made slaves, others free.”
One verb carries the argument: ἔδειξε, “showed.” The war did not create Ukraine’s value. It showed it.
We publish this newsletter every day at 9:05am NYC time / 4:05pm Kyiv.Your subscription fuels our work.
This piece takes stock and celebrates nothing. Its single thread: before, selling off a legacy; after, exporting its own creations. Its technical hinge, examined here: what the “combat-proven” label is really worth. My two earlier pieces for UFN stayed inside the war. This one starts in 1991.
I grew up in France in the 1990s and 2000s. Ukraine reached us in fragments: smuggling, arsenals for sale, rarely its engineers. That picture said less about the country than about what filtered through. I saw the rest only with this war, and that does me no credit.
In 1991, Ukraine inherited thousands of Soviet tanks and the Malyshev plant in Kharkiv. A 2011 report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) ranks the country among the 10 largest arms exporters in most years since 1991. From 2005 to 2009, 18% of the volume of its arms exports went to sub-Saharan Africa, and 72% of that volume came from surplus. Surplus needs no story to sell, just a buyer with a use for it.
In 1996, Kyiv sold 320 T-80UD tanks to Pakistan for about $650 million; the deal kept the Malyshev plant running and, according to the Kyiv Post, saved it from bankruptcy. In 2011, Thailand ordered 49 Ukrainian Oplot tanks, delivered through 2018 (Bangkok Post). The engineers were there, working for export.
In 2001, Ukraine sold 31 T-72s to Macedonia, according to the United Nations arms register. On July 29, 2022, North Macedonia’s defense ministry confirmed it was donating its T-72s to Ukraine and disbanding its tank battalion.
On September 25, 2008, Somali pirates seized the freighter Faina and its 33 Ukrainian T-72s. On paper, the cargo was bound for Kenya. In reality, according to U.S. diplomatic cables made public in 2010, it was meant for Southern Sudan, not yet independent, and 67 T-72s had been delivered to Southern Sudan’s forces before the seizure, the New York Times reported. The affair sums up those years: stockpiles on the move, destinations that were only a front.
Serhiy Bondarchuk, head of the state exporter Ukrspetsexport from 2005 to 2010, owned the label in a 2010 interview with Kyiv’s Levyi Bereg, cited by SIPRI: “Yes, we are also known in the world as arms dealers, but we must not be ashamed of it.”
Seen from France, Ukraine was then selling off a legacy. Its engineers stayed out of frame.
