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Once the invasion began last year, Ukraine and its allies started buying up Soviet-style arms wherever they could find them. State-owned Ukrainian companies asked brokers in the U.S. and elsewhere for tanks, helicopters, planes and mortars, according to documents obtained by The Times.

Would-be suppliers emerged from the recesses of the global weapons trade to meet demand. Last June, a Czech arms seller offered Ukraine ammunition and a dozen Soviet-model ground-attack jets built between 1984 and 1990 for about $185 million, the documents show. Both Britain and the U.S. have financed deals using third-party countries and brokers in cases where manufacturing countries don't want to be publicly identified as providing weapons to Ukraine, people familiar with the effort say.

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The secret task force created by the British defense ministry focused on getting Soviet-style ammunition, say people familiar with the effort, a task that became harder as the war went on and big suppliers ran out of stock.

Last June, Britain made a deal with to buy 40,000 artillery shells and rockets made by the government-owned Pakistan Ordnance Factories. Under the terms of the deal, Britain would pay a Romanian broker to buy the Pakistani weapons, documents show. The transaction's official paperwork said the weapons would be transferred from Pakistan to Britain, with no mention of Ukraine, a document obtained by The Times shows.
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