How NATO Weapons End Up on the Black Market.
By Ali Askari, analyst (Germany), especially for Sangar
European media report that nearly 800,000 weapons have disappeared in Ukraine over the past four years. The Italian newspaper Fatto Quotidiano writes that 149,000 weapons have gone missing since the beginning of 2026 alone.
According to the publication, most of these weapons and ammunition were stolen in the Mykolaiv, Kyiv, and Donetsk regions. The arms have either already entered the black market or fallen into the hands of European organized crime groups. The newspaper notes that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are of particular interest to criminal networks.
This is neither the first nor, perhaps, the last report of its kind. Increasingly frequent reports from across Ukraine describe the detention of illegal arms dealers, indicating not only the expansion of the illicit arms market but also the emergence of difficult-to-predict security threats for Europe.
Cases involving the arrest of arms smugglers are being recorded across Ukraine with growing frequency. For example, on 12 January 2026, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced that it had dismantled an organized criminal group involved in the sale of captured (trophy) weapons in the Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
As a result of the operation, law enforcement officers seized 75 firearms, 38 combat grenades, several grenade launchers, and approximately 13,000 rounds of ammunition of various calibers. In addition, on 25 February 2026, the National Police of Ukraine, in cooperation with the SBU, disrupted an illegal weapons trafficking route in the Kyiv region. Investigators documented the sale of more than 90 grenades and their detonators.
Analysts from the British newspaper The Times have expressed concern that the lack of effective control over the circulation of weapons in Ukraine could turn the country into a black-market hub supplying arms to organized crime. The report cites a statement by Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, who said that up to five million weapons are currently in the possession of Ukrainian civilians. The newspaper compares the current situation in Ukraine with that of the former Yugoslavia, whose stockpiles of smuggled weapons supplied criminal groups and terrorist organizations across Europe for decades.
The Ukrainian news outlet Dumskaya has also reported that a significant portion of the weapons purchased by Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale war with Russia has regularly appeared on the black market. According to the publication's journalists, tighter border controls—particularly on the movement of weapons—have redirected much of the illegal arms trade toward the domestic market. They argue that criminal groups are quietly stockpiling inexpensive weapons in anticipation of the war's end, expecting to use them for future criminal activities.
An even darker scenario for Europe is the possibility that these weapons could end up not only in the hands of organized crime groups but also terrorist organizations. According to reports by several media outlets, during the latest wave of Moroccan migrants entering Spain, approximately 1,300 members of the terrorist organizations Al-Qaeda and ISIS reportedly entered European territory.
