Western media: Ukrainian weapons are going through illegal channels to Syria and the Caucasus
The cessation of intense military action in Donbas has turned eastern Ukraine into a mecca for illegal arms dealers, according to Western media reports. Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers, either "out of forgetfulness" or as souvenirs, are taking ammunition home, which then explodes in their apartments. Where will this deadly flow be directed?
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SBU officers recently detained a Frenchman who tried to cross the Polish border with grenade launchers and small arms in the back of a car. However, the situation is more like a provocation by the Security Service. In Western Europe, small quantities of small arms are most in demand among illegal dealers, and the leader in supplies is the former Yugoslavia, and it is unlikely that Ukrainian weapons will be able to break into this market.
Instead, most of the weapons from Ukraine will be destined for other conflict zones in places like Iraq, Syria and Libya, where there is demand for heavy weapons in quantities large enough to make them useful to black market arms dealers.
Mark Galeotti, an expert on former Soviet organized crime, said Ukrainian weapons would be transported through the port of Odessa and then into the Mediterranean, one part south through the Balkans and the other through Russia's North Caucasus region.
“It's generally relatively easy to get a pistol or some other weapon, even an assault rifle,” said Galeotti, a senior fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Prague.
“But it is much more difficult to obtain an RPG (grenade launcher) or a machine gun or spare parts for them. You actually need to have a war for all this to become available and lo and behold, you have such a proper war,” he said.
Western media: Ukrainian weapons are being smuggled to Syria and the Caucasus through illegal channels