OPINION:
Even though deaths in East Ukraine have started to ratchet back up again as the Minsk peace accords barely hold back the fighting, the conflict has largely subsided from the all-out war between pro-Russian rebels and the Ukrainian armed forces that raged last year. This reduction in fighting in Donbass has allowed arms merchants to turn Ukraine into an anything goes arms bazaar that has consequences for anti-terror and crime prevention world wide.
The ever-present Kalashnikovs, anti-tank rockets, grenades, mortars, et cetera are all available to be sold on the international black market. Interviews by Reuters with security officials and rebels, as well as study of law enforcement data and court documents have shown that weapons are being channeled out of the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine in significant numbers, in some cases as part of an organized underground trade. “Of course, they have moved arms across, and they’re moving them across now,” Igor, a fighter with a pro-Russian rebel unit in eastern Ukraine told Reuters in an interview. “Mainly they take Kalashnikovs,” he said.
“It’s mostly people taking them home for the sake of it,” said Serhiy Alyoshin, the chief of police in the town of Sloviansk, which is on the edge of the conflict zone and controlled by Kiev. “Some say ’I forgot’, some say ’It’s for fishing’ or ’It’s a present for a friend’ and then we hear about these things blowing up in apartments, in yards and on the street. It’s a threat to national security.”
“Of course, anyone who has the will and the means can get into the business - organized criminal groups have always traded weapons,” said Olena Hitlyanska, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s State Security service, or SBU. “Now the channel for buying these illegal weapons has widened,” she said. “In past years we seized pistols and rifles that people had in their own collections or for hunting. Now grenade launchers are seized, and blocks of TNT.”
It is a given that some of these weapons are being made available to terrorists in Europe and possibly elsewhere. There simply are no controls on these armaments being brought of the conflict zone by would be entrepreneurs.
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