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A Sky News investigation has uncovered evidence that appears to show Russian special forces using British-made sniper rifles on operations in the past two years despite the British government saying it has never approved the export of these weapons to Moscow.
The evidence, verified by independent weapons experts, exposes flaws in the UK licensing system and raises serious questions about how Russia was able to acquire the guns.
The chair of the defence select committee has told Sky News it is "concerning" British-made rifles are in the hands of Russian forces and his committee plans to carry out an investigation into UK arms sales.
We can also reveal, for the first time, how the British government has no idea precisely how many UK-made weapons are being sold abroad and there is no way to track them if they're sold on, despite the British government repeatedly claiming it has one of the most "robust" and "transparent" arms licensing systems in the world.
The Ukraine Connection
It's winter in the Donbass, eastern Ukraine. Five Russian special operations soldiers are on patrol around the deserted village of Donets'kyi in the occupied Luhansk region – their moves are recorded by a camera mounted on a soldier's helmet.
They walk past shelled houses and through a network of trenches, dug after Moscow's 'little green men' invaded Crimea in 2014 and this bitter conflict erupted.
Pausing for a rest, one soldier removes his rucksack and lays his weapon on the trench wall.
It is a sniper rifle, that multiple weapons experts have independently identified as a British-made Accuracy International rifle, model AX338.
By comparing the rifle in the video with one that was sold privately on the open market in 2018 we can match-up some key similarities.
That model of rifle, the AX338, only came into circulation in 2010 but in a previous interview with the Sunday Express newspaper, Accuracy International said it hadn't sold any rifles to Russia since 2000, and an EU arms embargo has been in place since 2014.
"It is concerning and it shows the complexity of the international arms trade," Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defence select committee told Sky News.
"Here we have a state that has an arms embargo against it now using a weapons system that are designed and procured here in the UK."
Mr Ellwood was an army officer himself before entering politics. He's previously served as a minister in the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence.
The military uses the phrase "weapons system" to refer to a complete package including the weapon itself, ammunition, the soldier, their spotter and other ancillary equipment.
The Ukrainian military, which posted this video through their official channels, claim it was filmed close to the frontline. We have geo-located the video and are confident it was filmed in the village they claim.
The video starts looking back in the north-easterly direction, with a house to the right, before panning across a three-way junction and distinctive triangular section of road.
Early into the video we see the stone wall that surrounds a house, which matches up with the shape of the surrounding fencing visible in the satellite imagery.
A few seconds later we can see what looks like train tracks running parallel with the stone wall around the house, a few metres away. If we zoom out on our map, we can see the shape of the tracks and distance from the house correspond.
We have identified a house with a distinctive raised roof and two pylons in the background - this matches the shadows visible on the satellite imagery.
Using the conflict monitoring site LiveUAmap, we have also established that the village was within Russian-controlled territory at the time.
Working with military experts we identified the soldiers as Russian, based on equipment and clothing they are wearing.
The Ghillie camouflage suit worn by one soldier matches one worn by FSB soldiers in previous videos seen by Sky News.
The helmets are the LshZ 1+ model, made by Russian company Armokom.
The anti-drone system appears to be a modified version of the Russian Arbalet counter-UAV system, and the sights on one of the weapons is Dedal-T1.322 thermal sight, not believed to be in use by the Ukrainians.
The investigation was led by Lighthouse Reports, and carried out with Bellingcat and The Guardian. Researchers from the team have identified one of the soldiers in the video as a Russian national.
Rob Lee, a former US marine officer and now with the War Studies department at King's College London, shed further light on the soldiers' identities:
"Based on the equipment shown in the video, it is highly likely the sniper team was from an elite Russian special operations unit, specifically from the FSB's Special Purpose Centre that houses the famous Alfa and Vympel units," he told us.
So although we cannot be 100% sure, a considerable weight of evidence underpinned by expert advice suggests this video is genuine.
But in a statement to Sky News, the British government said it has only ever granted licences to "Russian individuals or to dealers for commercial sale for sporting purposes. None of the licences we issued for these types of weapon were for Russian forces".
This revelation raises serious questions about how Russia obtained this rifle and whether that was through a third-party supplier, unknown by the UK government.
So a British-made sniper rifle has been used by Russian soldiers in the same war-torn country that British Army soldiers and Royal Marine Commandos are training their Ukrainian allies only a few hundred miles away.
And this is not an isolated case.
In another video obtained as part of our research, Russian FSB soldiers can again be seen using Accuracy International rifles, this time in 2019.
It is thought to be an AX338 due to the shape of the rifle's buttstock, rear bolt assembly, bolt handle, receiver injection port, receiver and its forend.
How the Russian military has obtained these weapons is unexplained – Moscow has been the subject of an EU arms embargo since 2014, so it is highly likely they were supplied through a third party, possibly obtained originally for sporting or hunting use.
These videos are just two examples we found of Russian forces using British-made weapons and they highlight the weakness of the UK arms exports system.
There is no suggestion of an illegality or wrongdoing by Accuracy International.
"There are serious issues with the transparency of arms sales," Andrew Smith from Campaign Against the Arms Trade said in reaction to our findings.
"We don't know the quantities which are going over, we don't know who the end user is, and we don't know how the weapons are being used. Once those weapons have left our shores there is very little control over how they are used and there is very little control over who they are used against."
Arms Licences explained
There are two categories of arms licence: Standard and Open.
According to a UK government website, Standard Individual Export Licences "cover multiple shipments of specific quantities of controlled goods to a named consignee or end user and are usually valid for two years". Standard Licences are more detailed: the government specifies the maximum number of rifles and small arms allowed to be sold and to whom.
However, an Open Individual Export Licence is "more flexible", according to the same website, and "avoids the need to apply for a new licence for every export".
This therefore significantly reduces government oversight: when an Open Licence is granted the government doesn't limit the number of weapons that can be sold and from our research, the government rarely knows where those arms end up.
This is highly significant, because whilst exact data is hard to come by, for all the reasons explained above, it is estimated by a government survey that around half of all UK arms are exported under an Open Licence.
The result is that an unknown quantity of British-made weapons, initially sold to approved users, are now being traded and move unchecked around the world and at times used in conflicts against British interests.
"It takes us back to Charlie Wilson's war with the Mujahadeen, in a predecessor to the Taliban, where Americans wanted to give Stinger missiles to the Mujahadeen but not knowing what would happen to them, how they would be used after the Soviets were then pushed out," Tobias Ellwood said.
"Is there a way we can track, is there a way we can gain guarantees that these weapons systems won't be used or passed on? We don't want these weapons being used in the scenarios we now see."
The Kremlin Connection
We have also seen images of Russian-backed Syrian rebels with Accuracy International rifles in Syria and a Presidential Guard on the Kremlin ramparts scanning Red Square with one – British-made equipment used to protect the heart of the Russian government and the UK government has no idea how it got there.
So the rifle seen in Ukraine isn't a one-off, rather our research suggests it could be rife.
And in a final, defining image, former president Dmitry Medvedev was pictured at a military firing range in Novorossiysk, visiting the 7th Airborne Assault Division on a working trip to southern Russia in 2009.
In a well-cut dark blue suit and with ear defenders on, Putin's ally closes his left eye, looks down the sights of a sniper rifle and poses for a photograph.
The picture captures the spirit of Soviet strongmen past: the nation's leader, rolling his sleeves up, getting his hands dirty and protecting the federation against the evil forces of NATO.
The rifle, barrel resting on a khaki shoulder bag, has an identifiable serial number imprinted on to the steel: 06 AW 10302.
The AW stands for Arctic Warfare, the code identifies it as an Accuracy International rifle.
This weapon, manufactured in Portsmouth, has been used on the banks of the Black Sea barely a hundred miles from Crimea, which six years later Russian forces would invade and these weapons would be used as part of that conflict.
news.sky.com
The evidence, verified by independent weapons experts, exposes flaws in the UK licensing system and raises serious questions about how Russia was able to acquire the guns.
The chair of the defence select committee has told Sky News it is "concerning" British-made rifles are in the hands of Russian forces and his committee plans to carry out an investigation into UK arms sales.
We can also reveal, for the first time, how the British government has no idea precisely how many UK-made weapons are being sold abroad and there is no way to track them if they're sold on, despite the British government repeatedly claiming it has one of the most "robust" and "transparent" arms licensing systems in the world.
The Ukraine Connection
It's winter in the Donbass, eastern Ukraine. Five Russian special operations soldiers are on patrol around the deserted village of Donets'kyi in the occupied Luhansk region – their moves are recorded by a camera mounted on a soldier's helmet.
They walk past shelled houses and through a network of trenches, dug after Moscow's 'little green men' invaded Crimea in 2014 and this bitter conflict erupted.
Pausing for a rest, one soldier removes his rucksack and lays his weapon on the trench wall.
It is a sniper rifle, that multiple weapons experts have independently identified as a British-made Accuracy International rifle, model AX338.
By comparing the rifle in the video with one that was sold privately on the open market in 2018 we can match-up some key similarities.
That model of rifle, the AX338, only came into circulation in 2010 but in a previous interview with the Sunday Express newspaper, Accuracy International said it hadn't sold any rifles to Russia since 2000, and an EU arms embargo has been in place since 2014.
"It is concerning and it shows the complexity of the international arms trade," Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defence select committee told Sky News.
"Here we have a state that has an arms embargo against it now using a weapons system that are designed and procured here in the UK."
Mr Ellwood was an army officer himself before entering politics. He's previously served as a minister in the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence.
The military uses the phrase "weapons system" to refer to a complete package including the weapon itself, ammunition, the soldier, their spotter and other ancillary equipment.
The Ukrainian military, which posted this video through their official channels, claim it was filmed close to the frontline. We have geo-located the video and are confident it was filmed in the village they claim.
The video starts looking back in the north-easterly direction, with a house to the right, before panning across a three-way junction and distinctive triangular section of road.
Early into the video we see the stone wall that surrounds a house, which matches up with the shape of the surrounding fencing visible in the satellite imagery.
A few seconds later we can see what looks like train tracks running parallel with the stone wall around the house, a few metres away. If we zoom out on our map, we can see the shape of the tracks and distance from the house correspond.
We have identified a house with a distinctive raised roof and two pylons in the background - this matches the shadows visible on the satellite imagery.
Using the conflict monitoring site LiveUAmap, we have also established that the village was within Russian-controlled territory at the time.
Working with military experts we identified the soldiers as Russian, based on equipment and clothing they are wearing.
The Ghillie camouflage suit worn by one soldier matches one worn by FSB soldiers in previous videos seen by Sky News.
The helmets are the LshZ 1+ model, made by Russian company Armokom.
The anti-drone system appears to be a modified version of the Russian Arbalet counter-UAV system, and the sights on one of the weapons is Dedal-T1.322 thermal sight, not believed to be in use by the Ukrainians.
The investigation was led by Lighthouse Reports, and carried out with Bellingcat and The Guardian. Researchers from the team have identified one of the soldiers in the video as a Russian national.
Rob Lee, a former US marine officer and now with the War Studies department at King's College London, shed further light on the soldiers' identities:
"Based on the equipment shown in the video, it is highly likely the sniper team was from an elite Russian special operations unit, specifically from the FSB's Special Purpose Centre that houses the famous Alfa and Vympel units," he told us.
So although we cannot be 100% sure, a considerable weight of evidence underpinned by expert advice suggests this video is genuine.
But in a statement to Sky News, the British government said it has only ever granted licences to "Russian individuals or to dealers for commercial sale for sporting purposes. None of the licences we issued for these types of weapon were for Russian forces".
This revelation raises serious questions about how Russia obtained this rifle and whether that was through a third-party supplier, unknown by the UK government.
So a British-made sniper rifle has been used by Russian soldiers in the same war-torn country that British Army soldiers and Royal Marine Commandos are training their Ukrainian allies only a few hundred miles away.
And this is not an isolated case.
In another video obtained as part of our research, Russian FSB soldiers can again be seen using Accuracy International rifles, this time in 2019.
It is thought to be an AX338 due to the shape of the rifle's buttstock, rear bolt assembly, bolt handle, receiver injection port, receiver and its forend.
How the Russian military has obtained these weapons is unexplained – Moscow has been the subject of an EU arms embargo since 2014, so it is highly likely they were supplied through a third party, possibly obtained originally for sporting or hunting use.
These videos are just two examples we found of Russian forces using British-made weapons and they highlight the weakness of the UK arms exports system.
There is no suggestion of an illegality or wrongdoing by Accuracy International.
"There are serious issues with the transparency of arms sales," Andrew Smith from Campaign Against the Arms Trade said in reaction to our findings.
"We don't know the quantities which are going over, we don't know who the end user is, and we don't know how the weapons are being used. Once those weapons have left our shores there is very little control over how they are used and there is very little control over who they are used against."
Arms Licences explained
There are two categories of arms licence: Standard and Open.
According to a UK government website, Standard Individual Export Licences "cover multiple shipments of specific quantities of controlled goods to a named consignee or end user and are usually valid for two years". Standard Licences are more detailed: the government specifies the maximum number of rifles and small arms allowed to be sold and to whom.
However, an Open Individual Export Licence is "more flexible", according to the same website, and "avoids the need to apply for a new licence for every export".
This therefore significantly reduces government oversight: when an Open Licence is granted the government doesn't limit the number of weapons that can be sold and from our research, the government rarely knows where those arms end up.
This is highly significant, because whilst exact data is hard to come by, for all the reasons explained above, it is estimated by a government survey that around half of all UK arms are exported under an Open Licence.
The result is that an unknown quantity of British-made weapons, initially sold to approved users, are now being traded and move unchecked around the world and at times used in conflicts against British interests.
"It takes us back to Charlie Wilson's war with the Mujahadeen, in a predecessor to the Taliban, where Americans wanted to give Stinger missiles to the Mujahadeen but not knowing what would happen to them, how they would be used after the Soviets were then pushed out," Tobias Ellwood said.
"Is there a way we can track, is there a way we can gain guarantees that these weapons systems won't be used or passed on? We don't want these weapons being used in the scenarios we now see."
The Kremlin Connection
We have also seen images of Russian-backed Syrian rebels with Accuracy International rifles in Syria and a Presidential Guard on the Kremlin ramparts scanning Red Square with one – British-made equipment used to protect the heart of the Russian government and the UK government has no idea how it got there.
So the rifle seen in Ukraine isn't a one-off, rather our research suggests it could be rife.
And in a final, defining image, former president Dmitry Medvedev was pictured at a military firing range in Novorossiysk, visiting the 7th Airborne Assault Division on a working trip to southern Russia in 2009.
In a well-cut dark blue suit and with ear defenders on, Putin's ally closes his left eye, looks down the sights of a sniper rifle and poses for a photograph.
The picture captures the spirit of Soviet strongmen past: the nation's leader, rolling his sleeves up, getting his hands dirty and protecting the federation against the evil forces of NATO.
The rifle, barrel resting on a khaki shoulder bag, has an identifiable serial number imprinted on to the steel: 06 AW 10302.
The AW stands for Arctic Warfare, the code identifies it as an Accuracy International rifle.
This weapon, manufactured in Portsmouth, has been used on the banks of the Black Sea barely a hundred miles from Crimea, which six years later Russian forces would invade and these weapons would be used as part of that conflict.
Revealed: British sniper rifles used by Russian forces in Ukraine
Revealed: British sniper rifles used by Russian forces in Ukraine
