Russia’s Federal Security Service today announced that it has uncovered a network of “illegal weapons workshops” in 39 regions of the country. The special service said it had identified and shut down 124 gunsmiths from 59 underground workshops located in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sevastopol and the so-called “dnR”.
According to the FSB, more than 330 firearms were seized, including shotguns, grenade launchers, flamethrowers and mortars, about 300 kilograms of explosives, 123 electric detonators and more than 633,000 rounds of ammunition.
Apparently, corruption in the Russian Ministry of Defense continues to grow, because the “workshops” that Russian security forces have exposed today are only a small part of what is stolen from Russian army warehouses and sold “on the black market” by arms dealers.
Meanwhile, reports of the closure of such “black shops” selling and manufacturing weapons in Russia have become a widespread phenomenon since the beginning of the full-scale war.
For example, at the end of March 2024, Russian media reported the closure of a network of “illegal gun shops” where 562 firearms of domestic and foreign manufacture were seized, as well as more than 80,000 rounds of ammunition of various calibers, more than 30 kg of gunpowder and TNT, and 127 main weapon parts.
Back in October, Russia’s Federal Security Service announced that in two months it had seized 352 firearms from illicit trafficking and shut down 42 “illegal weapons workshops.”
According to their data, 42 grenade launchers, 6 machine guns, 67 assault rifles, 12 submachine guns, 105 rifles, carbines and smoothbore shotguns, and 120 pistols and revolvers were seized. In addition, the agency found 507 grenades, shells and various mines, as well as 138,000 rounds of ammunition and 33 kilograms of explosives.
One of the most common places to cover such “illegal weapons workshops” has suddenly become the Russian-occupied so-called “dpr” and “lpr”.
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