arms maker

The Thaad system is highly effective against ballistic missiles, according to manufacturer Lockheed Martin, the biggest US arms maker.

It was not immediately clear why there were no staff at either exhibition stand, which were located close to the pavilion of United Arab Emirates state arms maker EDGE.

As part of the EU military mission EUMAM, Western troops have trained some 6,200 Ukrainians in Germany this year, in a wide range of skills stretching from operating advanced air-defence systems such as IRIS-T to driving and firing modern tanks such as the Leopard 2, produced by German arms maker KMW.

The German company accuses the Finnish defence forces of breaching Finnish and EU competition rules with a ten-year agreement, made in March jointly with Sweden, to buy assault rifles and other handguns from the Finnish arms maker Sako Ltd, owned by Italy's Beretta.

Switzerland, which has a long-standing policy of barring any country that buys its arms from re-exporting them to parties in a conflict, on Wednesday blocked arms maker Ruag AG from selling Leopard 1 tanks that could have been used in Ukraine.