The shoulder-fired weapon has an advanced guidance system, unlike the old RPGs, and can hit a tank at 800 meters. would be an attractive target for any thief. The NLAW, or Next Generation Light Anti-tank Weapons, supplied by the U.K. In 2020 a member of the Ukrainian armed forces in Odessa stole several items including grenades and anti-tank mines. In a case in 2019, two Ukrainian soldiers attempted to sell a collection of weapons including 15 RPG-22 rockets for just 75,000 Ukrainian hryvnia - around $2,900. Ukrainian authorities convicted Gregoire Moutaux of attempting to smuggle weapons including rocket launchers for a terrorist attack in France in 2016.Īs the Small Arms Survey notes, the problem is not just a historic one involving outdated equipment. Some of them have ended up in the hands of criminals. Similar finds have been made in other secluded areas. One account describes how a man looking for mushrooms in the forest found a cache including a couple of RPG-18 anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade launchers, which he handed over to the police. These groups sometimes distrust the Kyiv government and prefer to maintain their own arms stockpiles, which may be discovered by others. Much of the problem comes from weapons stashed by volunteer battalions. Fortunately the weapons appear to have stayed largely within Ukraine rather than being exported. These are typically items manufactured in Soviet times and looted from military warehouses – frequently on the Russian side. Most of the current flood of weapons in the black market can be traced to the previous round of conflict in Ukraine, according to a 2021 report from the Small Arms Survey.
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