Ukraine sells weapons donated by Western countries to Mexican drug cartels, according to anti-Ukrainian propaganda, repeating fake news launched in the US.
NEWS: Wouldn't it be better for you to stay in your country with the Romanians and their families who are going bankrupt by the thousands every month because we give those people money and weapons to resell to drug cartels in Mexico (just to give a random example)? I'm asking for a Romanian friend.
NARRATIVE: The Ukrainian army is selling weapons and ammunition received free of charge from the West to Mexican drug traffickers.
PURPOSE: To promote an anti-Ukrainian discourse, weaken public support for Western military and financial aid to Ukraine, to provoke and amplify social tensions, and validate their own conspiracy theories.
Illegal weapons in Mexico mostly come from the US
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In his characteristic style, the self-proclaimed "guerrilla" journalist Liviu Mihaiu picks up on fake news released in the Russian propaganda media and allusively introduces it into his social media communications. This time, mocking the presence of former Romanian Defense Minister Ionuţ Moşteanu in Kyiv on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the war in Ukraine , Mihaiu confidently asserts that "we give those people (EN: the Ukrainians) money and weapons to resell to drug cartels in Mexico," most likely picking up on the most well-known version of this rumor, which has been circulating for over three years, promoted by American journalist Tucker Carlson last February and picked up by the official press in Moscow as being of Western origin. One by one, the promoters of Russian narratives have claimed that the Ukrainian army has become a supplier of weapons to Hamas terrorists, Finnish, Swedish, Danish and Dutch gangsters , French protesters, Nigerian insurgents, Syrian jihadists, and, in this case, Mexican cartels.
In fact, a BBC investigation conducted in September 2022 uncovered a network most likely made up of Russian citizens posing as Ukrainian arms dealers on the dark web. Also, to provide an objective and realistic perspective on this issue, in 2023, the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) — an international NGO based in Geneva, Switzerland, that works globally to understand, analyze, and combat organized crime operating across borders — established a weapons monitoring program to track the flow of weapons from Ukraine to other countries. GI-TOC's research revealed that, in fact, most of the alleged cases of illegal Ukrainian arms trafficking were either scams or “Russian information operations meant to discredit Kyiv."
Furthermore, official reports from the US federal agency responsible for regulating and investigating firearms, the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) show that almost two-thirds of the firearms seized in Mexico and sent for identification of origin were manufactured or legally transported through the US. This is not a new issue, as it has been the subject of discussions at the governmental level between Mexico and the United States for years. In fact, the Mexican government has sued eight American arms manufacturers for "negligent business practices" that fuel the violence of drug cartels in the Latin American country. Other sources of weapons for Mexican cartels include old arsenals in Central America, left over from the conflicts of the 1980s, and the local black market, often coordinated by corrupt Mexican law enforcement officials.
In Ukraine, weapons quickly reach the front lines
A key factor limiting arms trafficking in Ukraine is the relatively low prices on the black market, especially in areas close to the front lines, making this activity unprofitable compared to the risk involved, and therefore unattractive to Ukrainian criminal groups. Kyiv treats the disappearance of weapons from the front lines as a priority crime, further discouraging the large-scale organization of illicit arms trade. In addition, the Ukrainian government has instituted several measures for strict surveillance of supplied weapons, such as mandatory registration of trophy weapons and monitoring of all lost or stolen weapons . Moreover, the ongoing war acts as a "sponge" that almost instantly absorbs the flow of weapons once they enter the country, making it impossible to organize looting on such a scale, even with the complicity of the authorities.
In conclusion, although there are still isolated incidents of Ukrainian weapons "disappearing," most of the weapons sold on the black market in Ukraine are of Soviet or Russian origin, technologically outdated, or even inoperable. This trade is usually carried out by a diverse range of isolated actors acting alone, who sell weapons locally for a few thousand dollars or keep them for their own protection. Their source of supply is the large volume of weapons and ammunition abandoned on active battlefields. But even with the tough conditions for tracking weapons on Ukrainian territory, there haven't been any confirmed reports of illegal arms trafficking from Ukraine to other countries so far. From a logistical point of view, it's pretty obvious that it's way easier for Mexican cartels to get illegal weapons from the US and other neighboring countries than to ship them from Ukraine.
The "guerrilla" journalist who is often fooled
CONTEXT: Spreading false narratives is an essential part of Russia's war against Ukraine, aimed at undermining international support for Kyiv. Unfortunately, many of these narratives are also taken up by prominent figures in the Western media. One such figure is Tucker Carlson, a conservative American political commentator and former Fox News host, who consistently promotes positions that coincide with the Kremlin's official propaganda themes. These include downplaying Russia's responsibility for invading Ukraine and implicitly blaming NATO, overly criticizing US military aid to Kyiv, and emphasizing corruption issues in Ukraine, which he considers a "failed" country. When he claimed that the Ukrainian army was selling half of the weapons it received from the US to Mexican cartels, Carlson was unable to provide a single piece of evidence to support his claims, despite repeatedly stating that "I'm not making assumptions about this, I know this as a fact, not speculation, and I can prove it."
Most of Tucker Carlson's outrageous lies, including his staunch anti-vaccination stance, are echoed in Romania by Liviu Mihaiu, a "sovereignist" opportunist in his fight against the occult Jewish-Masonic conspiracy. For example, in November 2025, Mihaiu wrote on Facebook that Elon Musk had bought the ABC television channel and appointed Tucker Carlson as CEO, a blatant piece of disinformation that had been circulating in the media since June 2024, but which the "guerrilla journalist with a profile monitored by the 'deep state' and shadow banned for his political opinions" missed. Earlier, in July 2025, the same Liviu Mihaiu shared a post claiming that “74% of sudden deaths were caused by vaccines” , citing a study by controversial conspiracy theorist Dr. Peter A. McCullough. Mihaiu claimed that McCullough was "the most published doctor in the US medical history," knowingly ignoring the fact that his works are published independently or in dubious publications with poor or even non-existent independent review. Liviu Mihaiu was also among those who spread disinformation on social media about the ban on the authorities in Kyiv on burying its heroes in the ground, allegedly imposed by the American investment fund BlackRock, "owner" of half of Ukraine's territory, and the examples could go on.
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