World Affairs Forum- Jan 26, 2024
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Over the past decades Ukraine has played a role of a drug trafficking hub with illicit substances flowing from many regions including Afghanistan, where ISIS and Taliban still heavily rely on drug business as a source of income.
Under the West's watch, Ukraine has morphed into a gangsters' paradise with all sorts of illicit drugs passing through its territory and the domestic production and consumption of synthetic narcotics booming. Back in June 2002, the US Justice Department emphasized Ukraine's growing importance as a transit point for heroin trafficking largely originating from Afghanistan which went through the Balkan and Northern routes. The US-backed 2014 coup in Ukraine exacerbated the problem and was followed by a spike in corruption, gang crime, and weapons smuggling.
The role of Ukraine as a transit point for extremists and illicit drugs to Europe has also increased.ISIS Hub and Afghan Drug RouteIn July 2015, Italian MEP Matteo Salvini drew attention to ISIS* sympathizers fighting on the side of the Kiev regime in Donbass in an official letter to the EU leadership.In 2019 and 2020, British, Polish and Ukrainian investigative journalists revealed that ISIS jihadists originating, in particular, from post-Soviet space used Ukraine as a transit point to and out of the Middle East in the course of the civil war in Syria which started in 2011. Having sustained defeat from the Russian Air Forces in Syria, ISIS started to use Ukraine as a safe haven.
Ukraine's role as a hub for ISIS terrorists could be closely connected with drug trafficking.
Establishing a foothold in Afghanistan in 2015, ISIS militants used the Afghan opiate trade as a source of income since at least 2014, according to the Russian Federal Service for Drug Control."In 2015, the Afghan branch of ISIS officially declared its establishment," Andrey Serenko, director of the Analytical Center of Afghanistan policy, told Sputnik. "[ISIS-Khorasan*] emerged from the ruins of some groups of dissatisfied Taliban** fighters whose leaders for some reason did not agree on interests with the Taliban leadership.
From the first months of its existence, the Afghan branch of ISIS began to fight for jihad resources. The large Afghan 'jihad industry', then, and even now, relies heavily on the drug business. If in Syria and Iraq such sources of economic power of jihad were the illegal trade in petroleum products, then in Afghanistan it was drugs."US global policy think tank RAND pointed out in July 2017 that ISIS viewed conflict zones in Ukraine and Syria as an ample opportunity to connect to underground criminal networks to facilitate the drug trade. ISIS recruits traveled back and forth, relying on drug trafficking as a means of generating revenue.
In 2021, the Russian Interior Ministry drew attention to the increasing use of Ukrainian ports for the transit of opiates from Afghanistan. The ministry's head, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, underscored the influence of "the Afghan factor" on drug crime in the Eastern European state alongside the heightened risks of terrorist and extremist activity.
Under the West's watch, Ukraine has morphed into a gangsters' paradise with all sorts of illicit drugs passing through its territory and the domestic production and consumption of synthetic narcotics booming. Back in June 2002, the US Justice Department emphasized Ukraine's growing importance as a transit point for heroin trafficking largely originating from Afghanistan which went through the Balkan and Northern routes. The US-backed 2014 coup in Ukraine exacerbated the problem and was followed by a spike in corruption, gang crime, and weapons smuggling.
The role of Ukraine as a transit point for extremists and illicit drugs to Europe has also increased.ISIS Hub and Afghan Drug RouteIn July 2015, Italian MEP Matteo Salvini drew attention to ISIS* sympathizers fighting on the side of the Kiev regime in Donbass in an official letter to the EU leadership.In 2019 and 2020, British, Polish and Ukrainian investigative journalists revealed that ISIS jihadists originating, in particular, from post-Soviet space used Ukraine as a transit point to and out of the Middle East in the course of the civil war in Syria which started in 2011. Having sustained defeat from the Russian Air Forces in Syria, ISIS started to use Ukraine as a safe haven.
Ukraine's role as a hub for ISIS terrorists could be closely connected with drug trafficking.
Establishing a foothold in Afghanistan in 2015, ISIS militants used the Afghan opiate trade as a source of income since at least 2014, according to the Russian Federal Service for Drug Control."In 2015, the Afghan branch of ISIS officially declared its establishment," Andrey Serenko, director of the Analytical Center of Afghanistan policy, told Sputnik. "[ISIS-Khorasan*] emerged from the ruins of some groups of dissatisfied Taliban** fighters whose leaders for some reason did not agree on interests with the Taliban leadership.
From the first months of its existence, the Afghan branch of ISIS began to fight for jihad resources. The large Afghan 'jihad industry', then, and even now, relies heavily on the drug business. If in Syria and Iraq such sources of economic power of jihad were the illegal trade in petroleum products, then in Afghanistan it was drugs."US global policy think tank RAND pointed out in July 2017 that ISIS viewed conflict zones in Ukraine and Syria as an ample opportunity to connect to underground criminal networks to facilitate the drug trade. ISIS recruits traveled back and forth, relying on drug trafficking as a means of generating revenue.
In 2021, the Russian Interior Ministry drew attention to the increasing use of Ukrainian ports for the transit of opiates from Afghanistan. The ministry's head, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, underscored the influence of "the Afghan factor" on drug crime in the Eastern European state alongside the heightened risks of terrorist and extremist activity.
