Afrasianet - European concerns over arms smuggling from Ukraine's war zones are raising increasing security challenges, as signs of weapons reaching the black market grow.
Calls are mounting for the creation of unified European mechanisms to enhance tracking and data sharing, contributing to reducing the risks of smuggling and organized crime within the EU.
Calls for the creation of common databases with information on weapons
In light of reports of arms smuggling from Ukraine's war zones, Green Party security expert Konstantin von Nutz called for the creation of an EU-wide arms registry and increased data exchange.
Von Nutz explained on June 10, 2026 that supplier countries are not adequately prepared for this scenario. Evidence is growing that munitions and firearms have disappeared from Ukrainian battlefields and reached the black market.
Security experts suspect that some of the missing weapons have been supplied to Ukraine by supporting countries.
Von Knotz said: "It is necessary to have common databases that include information on the weapons that have been supplied to Ukraine, which is something like an EU-wide weapons registry."
Von Knotz also called on the German government to register all weapons found centrally, saying: "There should be a joint inspection process to identify the weapons that have already been found."
Counter-terrorism expert Hans-Jakob Schindler, of the Counter-Extremism Project, reiterated this demand and criticized the lack of a record of serial numbers For all the weapons delivered from Europe to Ukraine, making it impossible to trace their whereabouts.
He stressed that EU member states have benefited nothing from previous wars, saying: "Our learning curve as a society, including Germany, is quite stable."
Arms smuggling poses a challenge to EU
The Federal Office of Criminal Police (BKA) confirmed that traceability is "significantly hampered by missing firearm marks, incomplete records, or incomplete/incorrect registration."
They stated that only internal databases and publicly available sources are used. The problem of traceability at the federal and EU levels has been known for some time.
For example, an internal document issued by the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs in February 2024 stated that according to Europol, "an audit cannot be carried out Systematic reciprocity" when exchanging data within the EU.
The European Union's information technology agency LISA asserts that firearms smuggling is an enormous challenge: while there are around 35 million illegal weapons in circulation in Europe, only 620,000 are stored in the Schengen information system. A document notes that arms smuggling is a major challenge.
Growing illicit trade within the EU
The U.N.'s ReliefWeb confirms that the post-war flow of weapons into Ukraine, which has been added to the country's already huge stockpile of weapons, has raised concerns about the transfer of these weapons to the black market in Europe.
Confidential correspondence between Berlin and Brussels also shows that warnings about arms smuggling were issued shortly after the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022.
According to reports, the European police agency Europol reportedly informed representatives of the governments of EU member states in May 2022 that "illicit trade has already started and may be increasing."
In July 2022, the deputy head of the European border agency Frontex warned the Bundestag's internal affairs committee, saying: "We currently have near-total access to weapons of war in Ukraine. We assume, and we also have preliminary indications, that these weapons could reach Europe through smuggling."
Conflicts are Europe's main source of arms
Organized crime groups rely on the availability of weapons to carry out their activities, yet the market for firearms in the European Union remains limited in size, trafficking is small, and the smuggled weapons are intended either for personal use or to meet specific requests, according to the European police agency Europol.
In a report, Europol confirms that these weapons come mainly from the Western Balkans and the countries of the former Soviet Union, where weapons usually remained in the possession of individuals illegally following Recent conflicts in the region, and organized crime groups are using criminal routes to smuggle weapons.
"Usually we can't identify the weapons, but it's easier to trace the ammunition, and it often comes from the war in Ukraine," says Sanchez, a weapons expert at the Spanish National Police.
In press photos of a raid in Hungary in July 2022, Marco Bullers, an ammunition and explosives expert, and a former soldier in the Special Forces Command of the German Armed Forces spotted a modified modern Russian AK-47 assault rifle.
"This weapon is clearly designed for the military market," he says, adding that such weapons of war are currently easier to obtain in Ukraine than dead Russian soldiers.
Warnings about Ukraine smuggling weapons to terrorists
As the crisis in Ukraine enters an advanced phase, Western security warnings are mounting about the dangers of large quantities of weapons received by the Kiev government from abroad reaching terrorist organizations and organized crime gangs, both inside and outside Europe.
Western security experts described this scenario as "catastrophic," especially in light of indications that terrorist groups, led by ISIS and al-Qaeda, are currently seeking to rebuild their arsenals of weapons, after setbacks in various parts of the world over the past few years.
The experts' concerns are growing as widespread corruption in the Ukrainian military, as well as security officials, say Ukraine has been one of Europe's main arms smuggling markets for years.
Its territory is also a corridor for shipments of various types of drugs, amid data indicating rising crime rates.
Ukrainian military officials recently acknowledged that their country has lost nearly 50% of the arms supplies that have flowed to it since the outbreak of the crisis on February 24, whether they were destroyed, fled or lost control, which opens the door to selling them to unidentified third parties.
In late May, the European police agency Europol expressed concern that weapons sent by the West to Ukraine could fall into the "wrong hands", according to its director Catherine de Poliley: Such a possibility threatens to repeat the scenario seen in Europe three decades ago, when criminal gangs obtained large quantities of weapons used in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1990s.
But it may be more dangerous this time, in light of the use of so-called "dark web" sites by terrorists and criminals to buy advanced American and British military systems, which have been sent to Ukraine since late February, and have been withdrawn from its army or lost during battles, threatening to turn various parts of Europe into a black market for smuggled weapons.
In statements published by the American weekly magazine "The Blitz" on its website, Western experts said that such sites allow terrorist and criminal elements the opportunity to buy one system of the American "Javelin" portable anti-tank system for no more than $30,000, and it is also possible to obtain similar British equipment, at prices that are about half that less.
Experts warn that weapons smuggled from Ukraine could reach areas such as the Balkans and the Middle East, as well as the African coast, where ISIS is regrouping, amid reports of ties between it and criminal gangs active in European countries, such as Albania and Kosovo, that have made deals to sell weapons.
It is also feared that there are contacts between far-right militias in Ukraine and armed groups, some of them extremists, outside the country.
Observers of such controversial ties point out that in 2019, Ukrainian authorities arrested al-Baraa al-Shishani, a senior leader of ISIS, after an operation in which the CIA and Georgian police forces also participated.
The Secretary-General of the International Police Agency (Interpol), Jürgen Stock, has previously warned that the Balkans and Africa could become a destination for Western weapons that may be smuggled out of Ukraine, stressing that the availability of large quantities of weapons and materiel in the current war foreshadows the illegal proliferation of such equipment in the post-war phase.
An international mafia to smuggle weapons from Ukraine to terrorist gangs in Africa
Far from the energy, food and high prices crises that have swept the world due to the repercussions of the Russia-Ukraine war, which no one on the planet knows when it will end, the countries of the world are living in concern about their security from the smuggling of weapons from the battlefield to armed gangs in Africa and the Middle East.
The flow of weapons and the facilitation of their passage and then use is a scene that has been repeated daily within the African continent since the beginning of the Russian military operations, turning Africa into a large market for the arms trade, the spread of which has become a threat to the national security of the countries of the continent.
The crisis is that there is no mechanism to track these weapons, as Ukraine at the beginning of the war distributed weapons not only to the army but also to civilians without records or documentation as part of the state of alert that Kyiv was experiencing to repel Russian attacks, according to Nourhan al-Sheikh, a professor of political science, in her intervention on the "Cairo News" TV.
Security centers monitored the map of the arrival of weapons on the continent as they reach the border areas between Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and the Lake Chad basin, which prompted the Security Council in December 2022 to demand effective measures to prevent the smuggling of weapons and ammunition from Ukraine.
Controlling these weapons has become a very difficult challenge, as the weapons flowing into Ukraine come to southern Poland and then are reshipped to Kyiv, where the black hole is possible where the weapons leak from this point.
The transfer of weapons is done through sea lanes because they are not stricter compared to land lanes, and some gangs resort to receiving or handing over weapons to the "dark web", which has become an arena for all forms of crime.
Although Africa and the Middle East, the two regions most at risk of arms smuggling, Europe may also be under the fire of danger, as the countries of the old continent fear a repeat of the Yugoslav scenario, and the weapons reach organized crime gangs and some terrorist elements, and some crimes are carried out deep in Europe.
Reports indicated that the United States and Ukraine spent nearly $11 million on foreign fighters who joined the battlefield in Ukrainian territory, and their number reached 1,000 fighters of different nationalities, which affects the smuggling of weapons from the battlefield to Africa, Russian political analyst Dmitry Brezha said in an intervention on the "Cairo News" TV.
European concerns are also growing that the extreme right within the Old Continent is benefiting from the smuggling of weapons and their use to carry out operations deep in Europe, in light of the security problems faced by some countries vis-à-vis the Islamic State and extremist Islamic groups, as well as the recent coup attempt in Germany by the so-called "citizens of the Reich."
Use of Weapons Against Law Enforcement
Although the report stated that "widespread disclosure" of weapons smuggled from Ukraine to the EU remained limited, Spanish police have already uncovered evidence that organised crime gangs have armed themselves with weapons donated by NATO members to Ukrainian forces. The weapons are believed to have been advertised for sale and bought on the dark web.
According to security reports, weapons of war were found "in good condition" during police raids in Algeciras, Cádiz and Almeria at a rate of up to "two or three times" a month. "They have lost all fear and they use it even when we come to make arrests," says a security official.
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