Military kit in Ukraine may end up with UK criminals
MILLIONS of unregistered firearms circulating in Ukraine will become “one of the biggest threats facing law enforcement” across Europe, one of Britain’s most senior firearms experts has told the Mirror.
Paul James, ex-head of the National Ballistics Intelligence Service, said organised crime would take advantage of Ukraine’s huge stockpiles of unregistered small arms.
Fully-automatic Kalashnikov assault rifles are being handed out to civilians and experts believe many will end up in the hands of criminals this decade.
The former Yugoslavia, scene of the last war in Europe in the 1990s, is a source for most military-grade weapons in circulation among European criminals. They were used in terror attacks in France.
Mr James warned the fall-out from Ukraine “could be even greater” and called for action to be taken now to register small arms supplied to the country.
He said: “If we don’t take action then organised crime will take advantage of the millions of weapons distributed in Ukraine.”
Nils Duquet, director of the Flemish Peace Institute, said: “It is very difficult to assume we can control those weapons.
He warned that hi-tech anti-tank weaponry “will be of great interest to the terrorists .”