Ukrainians armed to the teeth as gun sales soar

Ukraine, which imports more weapons than any other nation, is undergoing a firearms revolution.

Borys Isakov inside his gun shop in central Kyiv. Picture: Viacheslav Ratynskyi

Georgiy Uchaykin slipped the knife from his pocket and slashed the freezing air of the shooting range in downtown Kyiv. One cutting arc, then another stab.

“Look,” said the 56-year-old chairman of the Ukrainian Gun Owners Association. “When men come at you with a knife you don’t have much time. They move quickly.”

He pointed the knife towards me. “That’s why gun owners train themselves to draw and shoot within one and a half seconds.”

Uchaykin, a bald, heavy-set man wearing jeans and T-shirt, grinned: “You can’t overstate the importance of guns.” He said he started teaching his grandson to shoot when the boy turned seven.

Since 2009, Uchaykin has pushed for Ukraine to amend its constitution to guarantee citizens the right to bear arms. His campaign has moved from a fringe position to a policy with popular support.

Ukraine, which imports more weapons than any other nation, is undergoing a firearms revolution.

Nobody knows how many guns are circulating in the country – and what happens to them after the war will have major repercussions around the world.

Svitlana, an employee of the Top Gun shooting range in Kyiv, hangs up a rifle as heavy weapons flood into the country. Picture: Viacheslav Ratynskyi

The revolution starts with Ukrainians themselves. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, most citizens did not want firearms controls to be liberalised. But surveys since then have consistently shown a majority of the population favour allowing civilians to own guns.

“Our perceptions have broadened in Ukraine. After we saw tanks rolling over our land, our cities, our homes. After we saw what happened to unarmed civilians in Bucha and Irpin,” explained Uchaykin.

“The main priority for people becomes the protection of their own. The police and the army can disappear quickly.”

Ukraine is already the only country in Europe where firearms are not controlled by law. Instead, a decree issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1998 regulates everything related to firearms. The result is a complex, confusing situation.

At Ensign’s Weapons Shop on Sichovykh Strilstsiv Street in central Kyiv last week, business was brisk. Inside the gun store, one of 41 in the capital alone, men in black puffa jackets stared at AR-15s, Kalashnikovs and pump-action shotguns.

In one cabinet, a Barrett M82 long-range sniper rifle was available for the equivalent of $16,400. A salesman promised one shot from it could “rip the head from an elephant”. A Turkish-made shotgun was priced at $370, less than the cost of renting a similar weapon for a few hours at a shooting range. It takes about a month to clear the hurdles on the path to gun ownership.

After background checks and payment of a $1900, Ukrainian citizens may purchase a shotgun, semiautomatic rifle or even the kind of powerful large-calibre sniper rifle that can stop a van in its tracks, as long as it’s registered with the authorities. But it’s impossible for them to own a handgun, unless they are awarded one for service to the state.

No data is kept on these awarded weapons, which in theory are limited only to handguns, and critics say the practice is wide open to abuse by officialdom.

The invasion three years ago further complicated the picture. “We will give weapons to anyone who wants to defend the country,” President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on February 24, 2022, the day the assault began.

In major cities, citizens picked up assault rifles from government trucks, with an unknown number remaining in private hands. In Kyiv alone, the government gave volunteers more than 25,000 assault rifles and about 10 million bullets, as well as rocket-propelled grenades and launchers.

More firearms and heavier weaponry have since flooded into the country, with Ukraine becoming the world’s largest importer of arms between 2020 and 2024. Thousands, and perhaps even millions, of so-called “trophy weapons” – grenades, rifles and artillery pieces left behind by Russian invaders – have come into Ukrainian possession.

Boris Isakov, who runs a gun shop, says it’s tough navigating both the ambiguities of Ukraine’s non-existent gun laws and fluctuating wartime demands. The mainstay hunting market was gone, thanks to a hunting ban prompted by the invasion.

“Our main clients these days are soldiers,” said Isakov. Special forces troops want better weapons than the state can provide.

Experts fear that without a buyback of unregistered weapons, post-war Ukraine could become a “Kalashnikov society,” in which disputes once settled with fists will be resolved with guns.

THE TIMES