Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Russian soldiers in Ukraine are stealing abandoned weapons from the battlefield and smuggling them back into Russia, or simply selling their own weapons to arms dealers. There has been a 300% increase in arms-trafficking cases since 2021. ⬇️

2/ An investigation by the Russian independent media outlet Verstka has identified a massive increase in cases heard by garrison courts against military personnel charged with the purchase, sale, storage, transportation and theft of weapons and ammunition.

3/ According to court records, the number of such cases has increased from 41 in 2021 to 137 in 2023. There have been at least 93 cases in the first 8 months of 2025, which suggests a final figure close to or exceeding that in 2023.

4/ At least a quarter of the cases have been heard in the Kursk and Crimea garrison courts, whereas previously cases were distributed across the country. In most cases, inspections uncovered weapons being smuggled in cars by both professional and mobilised soldiers.

5/ Soldiers generally claim that the weapons are "trophies" which they forgot to report or to remove from their personal belongings. They are often treated fairly leniently, with over 60% receiving suspended prison sentences or fines.

6/ Verstka reports that in the vast majority of cases, "soldiers cooperate with the investigation, declare remorse in court, desire to return to the front, and present checks for charitable contributions to organisations, including those helping the military".

7/ Russia has fairly strict gun control laws, which prohibit the private ownership of automatic or large-capacity weapons. Despite this, soldiers have smuggled pistols, automatic rifles, grenades, anti-tank rockets and large quantities of ammunition.

8/ According to serving soldiers, weapons are lost through a number of scams, including falsifying paperwork. Weapons are expected to be lost in assaults, but are "written off in advance". As Verstka describes it, quoting a soldier named Alexey:

9/ "A reserve of weapons “for a rainy day” is created on days when nothing happens at the positions: every day the command submits a report on losses, and if there were none, the figures are copied from the previous report.

10/ "Thus, Alexey says, a reserve appears that does not exist on paper, but in reality it lies in warehouses."

Another scam is to appropriate lost weapons recovered from the battlefield, which have been written off by their owning unit:

11/ "Assault operations are underway, and a company from a neighbouring brigade is assigned to assist our unit. This company takes up positions, and after two days of fighting, no one survives. Well, when everything calms down, our guys go and collect the weapons left behind.

12/ The weapons belong to the neighbouring brigade, so they are not registered anywhere with us, which means we can do whatever we want with them, whether it be selling them or using them ourselves, while the neighbouring brigade will write them off in a report and indicate…

13/ …that the weapons remained in enemy territory."

Captured Ukrainian weapons – not registered to anyone on the Russian side – are also in high demand and commanded a premium price. Another soldier, Vasily, comments:

14/ "There was some local guy [in the Kharkiv region], supposedly with some connections. He drove around in an unremarkable Zhiguli, bought weapons, loaded them into the trunk and drove away.

15/ "They sold their duty automatic rifles, which were just standing in the trenches, no one's, not named, not registered to anyone. After combat operations, everything that more or less survived on the field and could be used, all of it was sold to this guy."

16/ Combat footage was also sold for up to 140,000 rubles ($1,700) per recording (perhaps to Telegam bloggers):

17/ "We recorded all of this [footage], and his [the buyer's] friend, to whom he sold it, blurred out, let's say, interesting moments, but that's putting it mildly - interesting. They announced a price for these videos and paid very good money."

18/ The amount of arms smuggling is certainly far greater than the number of cases recorded by the authorities. However, they do not seem to be affecting the black market. In fact, prices for black market weapons have increased since 2022 due to a reduced supply.

19/ This is attributed to the authorities monitoring the black market and cracking down on gun ownership with tighter legislation. It's thought that most of the weapons owned by criminals are converted blank-firing weapons, rather than being smuggled from Ukraine.

20/ This suggests that the Russian authorities may have learned from the experiences of the 1990s, when large numbers of stolen weapons ended up in the hands of the Russian mafia and contributed to years of violent crime. /end

Source:
verstka.media/kak-rossiiskie…