Frontex warns of risk of large-scale arms smuggling from Ukraine after the conflict ends

The deputy head of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex, Lars Gerdes, has warned of a high risk of large-scale arms smuggling from Ukraine into Europe after the end of the conflict with Russia.

His words were reported by Politico.

“There could be arms smuggling on a larger scale. This could become a security problem for Europe,” Gerdes said.

According to the Frontex deputy head, after the conflict ends, a scenario similar to the situation following the wars in the former Yugoslavia is possible, when illegal weapons spread en masse across European countries.

Gerdes considers the risk to be particularly high at the moment of any possible ceasefire agreement or peace deal.

“At that point, there will be a large quantity of weapons, ammunition, and explosives in the country — and many people who need money,” he stated.

Gerdes noted that Frontex has strengthened its presence on Ukraine’s western borders and is closely monitoring the situation. “We have been preparing for this since the very beginning of the war,” he added.

Europol reported as early as the summer of 2022 that it had data pointing to instances of firearms being smuggled from Ukrainian territory by criminal groups. Sergei Shoigu, who at the time held the post of Russia’s defense minister, also indicated that some of the Western weapons supplied to Ukraine had already ended up on the black market and had “spread” across the Middle East.

In 2024, Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko assured that not a single unit of weapons had left the country illegally since 2022, and spoke of the “colossal work” carried out by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies on this issue.