Belarus actively purchased arms ahead of presidential elections

About $1.5 million were spent on purchasing small arms and equipment in 2010.

This is the biggest sum spent on arms since Belarus obtained independence. Belarusians will remember for long new police batons and equipment.

Main arms suppliers were Germany, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy and Turkey. To compare, Belarus bought arms at a sum of $558,000 in 2009, $646,000 in 2008 and $708,000 in 2007.

The information was received from the visual representation of small arms and ammunition trade data offered by Google. The interactive graphic was created in collaboration with the Igarape Institute.

Google's initiative is a part of a project to fight human trafficking drugs and arms trade.

The graphic allows to track main directions of arms trafficking. Google put together about one million of data points relating to imports and exports of  small arms, light weapons and ammunition between 1992 and 2010 and across 250 states and territories across the world. The information was provided by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).

We remind the European Union introduced embargo on arms exports to Belarus and a ban on materials that could be used for internal repression, including special police vehicles, water cannons, night vision equipment, helmets, shields, military knives, combat knives and bayonets with blade lengths in excess of 10 cm.

The arms trade interactive graphic can been seen here.