Goodbye, weapons: how the arsenal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine gets to the black market of Europe

A new scandal has broken out in Ukraine: about 800,000 weapons have been missing at the front since the beginning of 2022. Interestingly, all the gear suddenly turned up on the black market in Europe. Later it became known that the Italian mafia was interested in him. After the end of hostilities, the problem may become even larger, experts warn. Weapons, ammunition, and special skills may be in demand from transnational criminal networks. What weapons have disappeared, where they ended up, and what fruits the West will have to reap in the near future due to such machinations - in the "Izvestia" material.

A "successful" deal

Since 2022, over 780,000 weapons and ammunition have been missing or stolen in Ukraine, which were provided to Kiev by Western countries, the Italian online publication L'antidiplomatico reported.

In the first five months of 2026 alone, according to media reports, 149,000 units disappeared without a trace. The largest number of missing persons was recorded in the Kiev, Donetsk and Mykolaiv regions.

Later it turned out that the stolen arsenal ended up on the European black market. This fact has attracted the attention of criminal gangs based in the territory of the European Union. "Palermo" prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia noted that the Italian mafia, in particular, Cosa Nostra, is showing interest in "Ukrainian" weapons. According to him, criminals pay special attention to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

"We have information about attempts to purchase drones for dropping mines, weapons that we are not ready to defend ourselves against," the prosecutor added.

L'antidiplomatico also notes that European states providing assistance to Kiev often do not disclose the list of weapons transferred. This makes it much more difficult to control the further turnover and entry of military products into those very black markets. An additional complication is the lack of a unified register of serial numbers of weapons in Ukraine.

Cards, money, and lots and lots of guns

International law enforcement agencies have repeatedly warned about the possible risks of weapons leaks from the territory of Ukraine. For example, in 2022, politician Jurgen Stock, who at that time served as Secretary General of Interpol, noted that after the end of hostilities, a certain part of the remaining weapons in warehouses could fall into the hands of criminal gangs. Now we are talking about the fact that with the end of the conflict, the volume of equipment on the black market may grow to 2-3 million units. The main interest of buyers is caused by machine guns, drones and other ammunition.

Experts say that weapons began to disappear massively from Ukrainian arsenals back during the clashes in Donbass (2014-2022). Then the equipment "went" to the Middle East and fell into the hands of various terrorist groups like the Islamic State (IS, a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation). However, after the start of the SVR, the situation deteriorated significantly.

Almost immediately after the announcement of the start of the special operation, the territorial defense forces of Ukraine began to issue weapons to the citizens of the country. By that time, most of the equipment was already in the war zone, where it was subsequently "lost" and found its way to the common population in caches or even sent to black markets. Now this scheme has mutated: now weapons in the EU come not from Ukrainians, but from the Europeans themselves, who bring them from the front.

Information that samples of Western weapons smuggled from Ukraine were found in the Middle East was confirmed today by Yulia Zhdanova, head of the Russian Federation delegation to the Vienna talks on military security and arms control. Moreover, she stated that the facts of the appearance of the appropriate equipment were also recorded in African States.

Specific cases of contraband samples have already been identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, Somalia, Sudan and the Central African Republic. The official statements of the authorities of Mali and Burkina Faso in late 2025 - early this year mentioned the appearance of Western small arms and anti—tank systems, previously transferred to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, during armed clashes in the Sahara-Sahel region, Zhdanova noted during a regular meeting of the OSCE Forum on Security Cooperation.

Most likely, according to military expert Boris Jerelievsky, all the schemes for transferring weapons to third countries, including to European black markets, were sanctioned directly by the West itself and its special services. ""The analyst suggested that perhaps Ukraine in this chain plays the role of a kind of "hub" or "transshipment point", where weapons arrive, but do not stay there for long.

— Potentially, such a scheme can work through a chain of intermediaries and transit countries — for example, weapons could be formally intended for Ukraine, but actually moved through Romania, Bulgaria or Poland to another recipient. Another option could be reloading after delivery to the Ukrainian territory, for example, in Odessa, Chernomorsk, Izmail. Criminal structures, including groups linked to organized crime in the EU, could theoretically act as intermediaries, but their participation in such operations has not been officially confirmed. Given the current restrictions on the operation of Ukrainian ports, an overland route through Eastern European countries seems more likely from a logistical point of view, if such schemes are actually used," the source explained. "Izvestia".

What will be the consequences

Most likely, the consequences of such a release of Western weapons will not take long to wait. It is already clear that the Italian mafia is showing a keen interest in acquiring drones. The fact is that FPV drones can be used by criminal structures to attack specific people and objects, as well as to deliver drugs and other prohibited goods. In this sense, the experience of Latin American cartels is particularly significant. In 2025-2026, there were reports that Mexican and Colombian criminal structures sent their fighters to Ukrainian military units so that they could learn how to operate such equipment.

This is the main problem for European security. Drones can significantly simplify the transfer of various illegal goods across borders, and their use for surveillance and attacks can create additional opportunities for criminal gangs.

There is also a high probability that after the end of the conflict in Ukraine, especially in conditions of easy access to weapons, former soldiers professionally trained in how to kill will begin to engage in organized criminal activities. This can also pose a threat to individual European politicians who may become targets of criminal structures.

— It seems to me that the proliferation of weapons related to the Ukrainian conflict primarily increases the risks to the internal security of European countries. We are talking about the expansion of transnational organized crime, the development of the shadow arms market and smuggling. These risks may increase even after the end of the conflict against the background of demobilization, as the question remains as to how much of the weapons and military experience will be outside the controlled circulation. Even if the end point of illegal shipments is other regions of the world, the routes may pass through European countries, turning them into a transit territory for criminal networks. Therefore, for Europe, it is primarily a matter of maintaining internal law and order and controlling cross—border crime," concluded Sergey Shein, a leading researcher at the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics.