Weapons from Donbass Fighting Bleeding Back into Russia, Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 7 – One of the most dangerous if often unnoticed consequences of Russia’s invasion of the Donbass and Ukraine’s resistance there has been the bleeding back into both Russia and Ukraine of millions of weapons of various kinds as those who have taken part in the fighting return home with weapons they have used.

           

            Both Moscow and Kyiv have acknowledged this problem and sought to fight it, although Ukraine has been far more public about both. (For background on this, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/04/siloviki-launch-major-campaign-in.html,

windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/01/ukrainians-now-have-too-many-guns-for.html, gordonua.com/news/society/nacpoliciya-nachala-vseukrainskuyu-operaciyu-po-protivodeystviyu-nezakonnomu-oborotu-oruzhiya-206080.html and versia.ru/veterany-ato-vooruzheny-do-zubov-u-nix-na-rukax-bolee-8-millionov-stvolov.)

            Now, Anatoly Matios, the military procurator of Ukraine, has said openly that “each citizen who fights in the eastern portion of the country is taking home arms from the arsenal” (politikus.ru/events/109443-oficialnaya-statistika-kazhdyy-voennosluzhaschiy-vsu-utaschil-domoy-oruzhie-i-granaty-s-fronta.html).

            On Ukraine’s 112 Ukraina television channel, he said that “absolutely every one of the soldiers” in Ukrainian forces has been taking one or another weapon home as “souvenirs,” including “tens of towns of explosives, thousands of grenades, and hundreds of mines” in addition to “rifles, pistols and bullets.”

            He urged the creation of a special government agency to struggle against this phenomenon, because the existence of such an armed population can under certain conditions threaten the stability of the Ukrainian state.