The United States has sent approximately 1.1 million bullets seized from Iran last year to Ukraine. The US Central Command (Centcom) oversees operations n the Middle East and says the rounds were confiscated from a ship bound for Yemen in December. Ukraines Western allied warned their production lines were struggling to keep up with the rate at which Ukraine was using ammunition.
Centcom said the Iranian rounds were transferred to Ukraine on Monday. The ammunition was 7.62mm caliber. The number of ammunition shipped is a small percentage of the hundreds of millions of rounds already sent to Ukraine by allies. The United States already provided over 200 million bullets and grenades. The US gained ownership of the bullets in July through a process known as civil forfeiture. Through this process, an asset can be seized if its owner is believed to be involved in criminal activity. Iran backs the Houthi rebels in Yemen’s ongoing civil war, but arms transfers were banned under a 2015 resolution by the UN Security Council. Since the second half of last year, Iran has also been accused of supplying Russia with arms for use in the war in Ukraine.
Read More: US gives 1.1 million rounds of ammunition seized from Iran to Kyiv
