Customs officers seized three swords and a stone ax head in New York a number of months in the past
American authorities have handed over a cache of historical weapons to the Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC. It’s unclear who tried to smuggle the artifacts into the US.
Three steel swords and a stone ax head have been handed over on Friday, the embassy introduced in a tweet. The Ukrainian mission thanked US authorities for serving to to “repatriate our cultural property and part of our historical past.”
The objects have been seized by US Customs and Border Safety (CBP) officers at a mail facility in New York’s John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport in September, the CBP mentioned in a press release on Friday. The swords arrived from Russia and the ax from Ukraine, the company mentioned.
Though the swords have been posted from Russia, all of the objects “have been recognized as Ukrainian cultural property by representatives from the Ukrainian authorities,” the assertion learn. CBP didn’t say who had despatched them, or clarify the circumstances of their obvious theft.
Swords and axes may not be the one weapons not too long ago smuggled out of Ukraine. Fashionable arms – together with missile launchers and different “high-precision weapons” – supplied to Kiev by the US and its allies have been bought on the black market to criminals and terrorists, Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned final 12 months.
Referencing reviews of Western arms shipments going lacking inside Ukraine, Russian Overseas Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed in October that as much as $1 billion value of those weapons are funneled from Ukraine to the Center East, Africa, and Southeast Asia each month.
