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Britain Still Exporting Arms to Russia, Report Shows

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron attends the re-opening of the newly renovated Imperial War Museum in London.

While Britain has revoked many licenses for arms exports to Russia, including those for sniper rifles and body armor, a parliamentary report said export deals worth more than 168 million pounds were still outstanding.

A report compiled by four of parliament's select committees found Britain had more than 5 billion pounds ($7.4 billion) worth of outstanding arms export licenses for countries on the government's human rights concern list, including Russia.

"There is an inherent conflict between strongly promoting arms exports to authoritarian regimes whilst strongly criticizing their lack of human rights at the same time," the Committees on Arms Exports Controls said in its report.

John Stanley, chairman of the committees, said arms export licenses to Russia, which were criticized by the committees in their 2014 report, were still "a major issue of concern."

The committees said in the report 248 licenses worth more than 168 million pounds of arms exports to Russia were still outstanding.

They included licenses for components for military helicopters, small arms ammunition and software for secure communications.

"We would take the view that anything that goes to the Russian government could end up being used in Ukraine," Stanley said.

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