DNA Exclusive: War now a money minting tool for arms manufacturers

New Delhi: Ukraine and Russia met for fours hours in Istanbul for a fresh round of peace talks on Tuesday (March 29, 2022), with Kyiv seeking a ceasefire without compromising on its sovereignty or territorial integrity. Later, the Russian military announced it will “fundamentally" scale back operations near Ukraine's capital and a northern city. Both sides played down hopes of an early breakthrough. The widespread devastation of lives and property has left millions in grief, however, it has acted as a money-printing machine for the arms and ammunition companies. 

In today's DNA, Zee News Editor-in-Chief, Sudhir Chaudhary analyses how the war has become an industry and how the arms-manufacturing companies across the globe have been filing their coffers even as millions of innocent lives are being lost everyday.

As soon as the Russian invasion of Ukraine started shares of many arms companies belonging to the western countries has increased many folds. 

Shares of a US-based company, Lockheed Martin, which supplies weapons to different countries of the world, including Ukraine, have jumped by 27 percent, from 355 US dollars to 453 US dollars, in a month because of the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia. 

Whenever a building falls down, the stocks of these weapons manufacturing companies go up. The longer the war between Ukraine and Russia lasts, the more these arms-making companies will benefit. 

Similarly, it has been observed that shares of other arms making company based in Germany, Rheinmetall, has increased by 143 percent in the last two months. Notably, neither Ukraine nor Russia buys arms from this company, but the fear of war has helped the share prices of this company in reaching historical levels.

The recent developments in Ukraine have also alarmed several other nations. No country wants to compromise with national security nowadays and this has led them to announce an increase in their defence budgets. This step has been taken by Romania, Sweden, Denmark, China and Poland. In fact, countries like Britain, France and Canada are also considering increasing their defence budgets.

This arms industry in the whole world is worth about 38 lakh crore rupees. This makes one wonder what will happen when all these countries increase their defence budget and spend more money on weapons?