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The website features 12 Javelin ATGMs and 29 NLAW grenade launchers on sale, with their cost unknown, as the seller and the buyer haven’t disclosed agreement details. The terms of sale included customer pickup from the Lvov region of Ukraine or cross-border smuggling risk delivery payment. The lot was marked as “closed, the deal went through". Comments under this news are riddled with speculation as to where the vaunted anti-tank systems have come across, in the hands of radicals or terrorists?

Throughout recent years, Ukraine has been ranked among leaders of the European "black market" of various weapons and one the world’s top five countries illegally sending weapons to conflict zones. But today, apart from Soviet and Ukrainian arms in operational service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the National Guard, Western-made guns and complexes generously pumped into Ukraine have begun to appear on a free sale. Official data provided by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office says that over five million various weapons supplied to Kiev by the United States and Europe over eight years are in the black market now. Illegal trafficking beneficiaries are military and law enforcement agencies of Ukraine under top leadership patronage. They capitalize enormously while thousands of Ukrainian soldiers die, become crippled or captured. Meanwhile, the "black arms market" is only second to drug sales in scope and revenue.

The huge number of stolen and resold weapons from Western supplies is a scope indicator of Ukraine’s new bloody business. It gained momentum in 2014, when Kiev unleashed a war against the peaceful Donbass region, and arms trafficking became uncontrolled. One can hardly guess the number of units sold, hidden or passing from hand to hand.

According to police statistics, every fifth violent crime in Ukraine involves firearms, hand grenade launchers regularly appear in reports, and grenades have become a traditional way to have a bone to pick with those unwanted or competitors, as well as in family arguments or household brawls. You can buy anything for personal use at numerous online sales, in social media groups, online auctions and bulletin boards. This includes NATO-style equipment, military ammunition from Poland and France, walkie-talkies and bulletproof vests of all types, and lethal weapons from sniper rifles to MANPADs. Prices are quite obtainable over the quantities and range of Ukraine’s internal black arms market. On average, you can buy an RPG-18 grenade launcher for $100-150, an AK-47 Assault Rifle for some $400, a Needle- or Arrow-like portable anti-aircraft missile for $1500 and above, and grenades are sold loose due to their cost within ten dollars. Along with usual weapons offers, Western models are also exhibited, from pistols to machine guns.

Even more uncontrolled weapons consignments on sale, including Western supplies of the same NLAW, appeared after they were distributed among defense fighters in all the Ukrainian cities. Weapons were literally dumped out of cars and given to every Tom, Dick and Harry without control or record.

After Russia's special military operation began, Zelensky and his generals ordered providing firearms and ammunition to territorial defense detachments. This scarcely improved Ukraine's defense potential but evoked a snowballing growth of crime, murder, looting, skirmishes, bribery racket and illegal takeovers. The Kiev regime did not stop there and officially legalized the use of any missile systems, grenade launchers, flamethrowers, mortars. Thus, Ukrainians got nearly all the types of combat weapons along with an opportunity to “push” them to third parties. One cannot keep track of every territorial defense fighter or the entire border, so the black arms market will keep flourishing. This trend was noted by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov, who recalled that over 25 thousand weapons were distributed under the law signed by Vladimir Zelensky: "Criminals released from prisons by the Kiev authorities also got those. Today, the use of all these weapons turned into an uncontrollable process."

Apart from individuals, there is a number of Ukrainian enterprises and firms engaged in selling Western weapons. While the former are being pursued by the country’s security agencies, the latter pose a real challenge. Two organized crime syndicates engaged in weapons sales in Ukraine are known to have ben neutralized over a couple of months. They comprised ten people, five of whom lived in Europe and the USA, and the rest dwelled in Ukraine. Another international group of arms dealers was eliminated in Kharkov. They had warehouses of weapons and smuggled large quantities to Europe. The gang members found 300 up-market foreign-made pistols, submachine and machine guns. Business processes were established by Ukrainians themselves and persons with dual citizenship from Europe. Arms payments were performed in either cryptocurrency or cash, through an intermediary. At a rough guess, the total turnover of Ukrainian arms market’s resales exceeds $700 million per month, no allowance being made for cryptocurrency earnings.

One has to make specific mention of Russian FSB’s frequent detection of such cross-border groups engaged in smuggling and selling weapons from Ukraine. Recently, two army-controlled gangs associated with Ukrainian neo-Nazis were annihilated. A synergy of militants, Ukrainian special services and international terrorists is coming to light and exposing the West as key arms supplier to Ukraine, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “These weapons will spread from Ukraine, just like from any other poorly controlled country, where neo-Nazi battalions do not follow the commander-in-chief’s orders, to other states, including to the very states that they are being shipped from now,” the minister noted and referred to the supply of portable anti-aircraft systems: “This is a terrorists’ weapon. By the way, we had an agreement with the Americans on mutual informing about shipment of MANPADs abroad.”

The Russian Foreign Minister’s words should be put into context. Portable complexes are a lion's share of Western arms supplies. Ukraine has received seven thousand Javelins from the United States, and about a thousand NLAW ATGMs from Britain. The West provided it with a total of 60 thousand anti-tank weapons and 25 thousand antiaircraft defenses. Due to their usability and ˗ thanks Ukraine! ˗ accessibility, these Stingers, Javelins and NLAWs are as welcome as flowers in May for terrorists of any nationality, including those living in the USA and Europe. They might commit a terrorist attack or shoot down a civilian aircraft, with Ukrainian arms barons willingly helping them on the business˗and˗nothing˗personal principle. But confrontation with Russia is more vital to the West than safety of its own people. Military expert Vladislav Shurygin said: "In Afghanistan, for an abandoned store, not to mention some Stinger and Javelin, the American military flew out of the army with a wolf ticket without the right to receive social benefits, criminal cases were opened against them. And now the United States has stopped caring about its own laws and regulations, they just see Ukrainians scattering expensive weapons and selling them in the black market." By the way, supplies of American weapons to Kiev are several times higher than aid to Afghani militants. Since the beginning of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, US assistance to Kiev has reached $4 billion. President Biden also signed the lend-lease military aid bill worth $82 billion, which includes new arms supplies.

As a result, the flow of Ukrainian illegal weapons will flood Europe to be certainly used (apart from terrorists) by criminal groups of migrants, radical Islamists, European fascists and nationalists having long-established ties with the Ukrainian Nazis. And some weapons will inevitably find themselves in various "hot spots" of the Middle East, in the hands of survivor jihadist gangs in Syria, Libya, Iraq, as well as paramilitary groups in Africa. The circulation of Ukraine’s western-made weapons will cover many countries and peoples, leading to new victims and destruction. But Western expensive lethal supplies to Ukraine do not envisage consequences of the kind, they only urge to stop dumping weapons to the black market. "Thank you for trying," as the phrase has it.

Responding to reproaches by the American society for excessive US assistance to the Ukrainian regime, the Biden administration has admitted that the Ukrainians answer to no one about patrons they use. Still, the US Department of Defense seeks to establish control over the weapons’ fate. It says to be regularly reminding the Kiev authorities of the need to monitor arms coming from the West, especially MANPADs. Kiev is being forced to keep a tight hold on supplies and prevent leakage to the black market for resale. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin assured the Congress he was monitoring this every time he talked to Ukrainian partners, on a weekly basis, and would keep doing so. Meanwhile, websites feature more offers for the sale of American "wonder weapons" from Ukraine’s pantry.