The amount of weapons in Ukraine – both legal and illegal – is growing "in arithmetic progression," and along with it, attempts to sell unregistered weapons have become more frequent. This was revealed in an interview with LIGA.net by Andriy Nebitov, Deputy Head of the National Police and Chief of Criminal Police.
According to him, this has resulted in an increase in the number of crimes, accidents, and suicides involving weapons.
What law enforcement seized
Since the beginning of 2026, police have removed 2,213 units of firearms from illegal circulation – including 747 automatic rifles and 506 grenade launchers – as well as 19,666 grenades. These figures demonstrate how much wartime weaponry continues to circulate outside legal control.
"Attempts to sell illegal weapons have become significantly more frequent," Nebitov noted.
Declaration as a compromise
The official emphasized that the mechanism for declaring trophy weapons allows Ukrainians to legalize samples that came into their possession during martial law, while simultaneously "contributing to increased public safety and control over weapons circulation."
However, statistics reveal a gap between declarations and actual surrender: in April, the National Police reported that Ukrainians declared nearly 20,000 units of trophy weapons and over 11 million ammunition rounds, but voluntarily surrendered fewer than 500 units over almost a year and a half of relevant law amendments being in effect. Declaration gives the right to keep weapons until the end of martial law, after which they must be surrendered within 90 days.
That same month, law enforcement reported that Ukraine has 812,000 officially registered owners of weapons and special devices, who together possess over 1.16 million units of various types of armaments.
The question is whether police can accelerate the pace of seizures faster than the supply of illegal weapons grows on the market – because so far, the arithmetic is clearly not in favor of control.
