The largest destination for UKmade weaponry was Qatar, which spent £2.7bn, and 54% went to countries designated as "not free" by the human rights group Freedom House.
These include Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as Qatar.
The £8.5bn recorded in 2022 is comfortably a record since the UK began publishing export data in 2008, and is more than double the £4.1bn recorded in 2021. The previous high was £6.9bn in 2015, a time when Syria had collapsed into civil war.
Denne historien er fra May 26, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra May 26, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Finn family murals
The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition
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