MOSCOW, July 25 (RIA Novosti) – Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry said the defense material found in an airplane en route from Vietnam to Ukraine and seized by the Finnish customs authority was sent to the crisis-hit country for maintenance, Agence France-Presse has reported.
Finland’s customs officers earlier said they detained the air cargo consignment that had arrived from Vietnam via Hong Kong and contained seekers for air-to-air missiles, classified as “defense material.”
No application for this consignment had been received, the report said.
A spokesman for Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry, Le Hai Binh, told the Vietnam News Agency that the military equipment was being sent to Ukraine for repair and maintenance.
The shipment is in line with the bilateral defense cooperation and is a normal activity under the international law, Binh told the agency.
The investigation is expected to take at least half a year. No one has been arrested so far.
