According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 780,465 lost and stolen firearms have been recorded since the start of the full-scale war. Weapons reported missing during the war currently account for 66% of the total entries in the registry. This year, 149,000 new entries were added to the registry—almost as many as in all of 2025. Automatic weapons, hunting rifles, and carbines are the most commonly stolen and lost. Nearly half of the lost and stolen weapons are in Mykolaiv, Kyiv, and Donetsk regions.
780,465 weapons have been lost or stolen in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion. This accounts for 66% of the total number of lost and stolen weapons—1.17 million units.
The highest number of reports of lost weapons appeared in the first year of the full-scale invasion—266,086 units. In 2023, the number of lost and stolen weapons decreased, but starting in 2024, the figure began to rise again. This year is on track to set a record: 149,760 weapons are already listed as missing this year. By comparison, nearly as many losses were recorded over the entire previous year: 179,315 cases.
The registry saw a significant increase in March: as many as 130,000 entries. However, it is worth noting that 60% of these entries pertain to weapons that went missing during the first year of the full-scale conflict (2022). Currently, the registry records two dates: the date of loss/theft and the date of entry into the registry.
Most cases of lost weapons are recorded fairly promptly—within a week of the disappearance: 512,350 cases. At the same time, 173,980 entries are added with a delay of over a year.
Only 4% of entries concern stolen weapons; the vast majority are marked as lost.
Which weapons are most frequently reported missing?
Automatic rifles (252,369 units), hunting shotguns (210,712), and carbines (102,616) are the most commonly lost or stolen. The undisputed “leader” is the AK-74 automatic rifle: every fourth entry in the Registry pertains to this specific model.
One in five cases of lost and stolen weapons occurs in the Mykolaiv region: 169,172 weapons. It is followed by Kyiv (104,864 weapons) and the Donetsk region (86,188).
Together, these three regions account for nearly half of all lost and stolen weapons in the country.
According to a report by Interfax-Ukraine, the architecture of the Unified Weapons Registry (UWR) eliminates the possibility of any “gray areas” or uncertified third-party software integrations; the goal of the UWR is to provide citizens with a modern service, and the state with reliable control, emphasizes Maksym Khimchenko, director of the state-owned enterprise “Infotech.”
In an exclusive interview with the Interfax-Ukraine agency, Khimchenko explained that the weapons registry is a system that is constantly being improved.
According to the director of “Infotech,” when the registry was launched in 2023, it was built on a fundamentally different foundation.
“We had to deal with a colossal volume of fragmented data that had accumulated over decades in various formats. We carried out a titanic effort: we unified this data and created an electronic classifier of weapons, ammunition, and explosives (WAME),” Khimchenko emphasized.
He explained that now each item has a clear digital profile, which prevents the kind of manipulation typical of the old “manual” management system.
The director of “Infotech” noted that the creation of a branched system of user accounts in the ERZ has changed the philosophy of interaction. “Today, the ERZ is a unified ecosystem where each participant has their own secure workspace—the architecture eliminates the possibility of any ‘gray areas’ or uncertified third-party software connections from the very beginning,” he noted.
Khimchenko added: “This is our own product, where the path of a weapon from the store to the owner is completely transparent. Our goal is to provide citizens with a modern service and the state with ironclad control.”
He emphasized that the path toward tightening regulations and creating a proprietary closed ecosystem was the only correct one for national security.
Speaking about feedback on the operation of the weapons registry, the director of “Infotech” noted that the Ministry of Internal Affairs is engaged in an open dialogue with market participants.
“They voice their needs and comments, after which we work through them together, formulate requirements, prepare functional specifications, and move on to technical implementation and deployment,” said Khimchenko.
State Enterprise “INFOTECH” is the operator and developer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ digital systems, ensuring their creation, operation, and 24/7 support.
https://interfax.com.ua/news/general/1162589.html
The global ranking of armed populations, compiled on the basis of the Small Arms Survey, shows that the ten countries with the largest number of civilian weapons include the United States, India, China, Pakistan, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. Ukraine is not on this list, but even before Russia’s full-scale invasion, the country was among the states with a significant amount of weapons in the hands of citizens. The Experts Club Analytical Center analyzed global and Ukrainian statistics.
According to the Small Arms Survey for 2017-18, there were about 4.4 million civilian weapons in Ukraine—approximately 9.9 guns per 100 inhabitants. Of these, only about 800,000 were officially registered, and about 3.6 million belonged to the illegal segment.
According to the National Police database, as of July 31, 2018, there were 892,854 registered weapons in the country. In 2021, the Ministry of Internal Affairs estimated the number of weapons legally owned by citizens at approximately 1.3 million, against the backdrop of tighter regulations and growing public interest in self-defense after 2014.
The full-scale war of 2022 dramatically changed the picture. Against the backdrop of the formation of territorial defense and volunteer units, the state massively transferred small arms to citizens; at the same time, a significant number of captured and illegal firearms ended up in the hands of the population. Estimates today vary widely: according to Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, Ukrainians may have between 1 and 5 million weapons, while a number of think tanks put the figure at 4–5 million, of which 2–3 million may be in illegal circulation.
Research by Small Arms Survey using sociological surveys shows that up to 11% of Ukrainian households may have at least one weapon, which on a national scale gives a range of 865,000 to 1.42 million armed households. At the same time, the share of households that openly report the presence of weapons in 2023–2024 remains at 5–6%, which indicates both a high level of distrust and the sensitivity of the issue in wartime.
To bring order, Ukraine has launched a Unified Weapons Register. By July 2024, 63% of households that own weapons stated that some or all of their weapons were registered; among those who are aware of the system, 74% claim to have registered all their weapons, but about 10% continue to keep unregistered weapons.
Thus, while before the war there were approximately 1.3 million registered weapons in Ukraine and several times more illegal firearms, now, against the backdrop of full-scale hostilities, there are millions of weapons, a significant portion of which must gradually be registered or confiscated.
This makes the issue of civilian weapons control one of the key issues for post-war security, law enforcement reform, and Ukraine’s negotiations with the EU on the harmonization of weapons legislation.
Source: https://expertsclub.eu/ukrayina-na-tli-svitovogo-rynku-czyvilnoyi-zbroyi/
As part of the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) program, Poland will allocate $100 million for the purchase of American weapons for Ukraine. The purchases will be financed from the budget of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the head of the ministry, Radosław Sikorski.
“Europe’s security will be enhanced or diminished as a result of how this war ends,” Sikorski stressed, according to Polsat News.
As reported, the initiative to finance the purchase of American weapons for Ukraine came after the US administration refused to continue supplying weapons to Kyiv free of charge. In August, four packages of American weapons were prepared for a total amount of about $2 billion. The funding was provided by Germany, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.
On August 15, at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium, Luxembourg, Finland, and Iceland announced their decision to join the program to finance Ukrainian defense orders within the framework of the NATO initiative “Priority Urgent Requirements List for Ukraine” (PURL).
On October 23, Spain announced its agreement to join the PURL project in response to renewed criticism from US President Donald Trump regarding Spain’s unwillingness to increase military spending.
Beijing has never provided weapons to either side of the Ukrainian conflict and does not intend to tolerate G7 attempts to put the blame on China, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said on Thursday.
“China has always been open and honest about the Ukrainian crisis, has not provided lethal weapons to either side of the conflict, strictly controls dual-use goods and will never accept the G7’s attempts to shift blame or label China,” the Global Times quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.
Lin Jian commented on the statement of the G7 foreign ministers, in which the ministers condemned Beijing for allegedly transferring weapons and dual-use goods to Moscow.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman noted that the authors of the statement ignored the facts and deliberately vilified China, interfering in the internal affairs of the country. He emphasized that Beijing is extremely dissatisfied with such a position of the G7 and strongly opposes the statement.
In a joint statement issued on Thursday night, the G7 foreign ministers condemned countries they believe are supporting Russia in its war against Ukraine.
“We condemn the provision of military support to Russia by the DPRK and Iran, as well as the provision of arms and dual-use goods by China,” the statement said.
The ministers also expressed concern over the “military build-up by the Chinese army” and “unilateral attempts to change the status quo, in particular by force or coercion” in the East China Sea and South China Sea.
Ukraine will open offices in Berlin and Copenhagen this year to sell arms for export, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced.
“We are opening two export capitals. You know that this is co-production and export, which we talked about, of weapons that we can afford to sell in order to have additional money for our domestic production of scarce items, for which we do not have enough money,” Zelensky said at a briefing on Monday.
According to the president, the opening of the first two representative offices was decided not at the level of companies that will be involved in co-production, but at the level of states.
“The first two capitals are our representative offices, Berlin and Copenhagen. This will happen this year,” the president added.
