Ecuador’s government has halted a deal to transfer antiquated Soviet weapons for new arms from the US, according to President Daniel Noboa.
This comes after the president discovered that the antiquated weaponry would have been shipped to Ukraine.
Noboa, who is dealing with deteriorating security and has labeled 22 criminal gangs to be terrorist organizations, stated in January that Washington will provide his country with $200 million in new weapons in exchange for ‘junk’ munitions.
Report says the spokeswoman for the foreign ministry of Russia, which invaded Ukraine two years ago, criticized the arms exchange earlier this month.
“Russia is our third-largest commercial partner, and in this particular case they were right, we would have been triangulating arms and we won’t do that,” Noboa said.
Several high-ranking U.S officials have visited Ecuador in recent weeks to discuss cooperation on security issues.
Russia last week lifted a ban on banana imports from five Ecuadorean businesses. It had said there were sanitary issues with the shipments.
