Will guns from Ukraine end up on the streets of Britain?

While visiting a Ukrainian militia this summer, I nearly trod on an anti-tank mine which was being used as a doorstop at the entrance to their HQ. ‘Don’t worry, it’s a broken Russian one that we found,’ said my breezy host, Eduard Leonov. ‘We’re trying to fix it so we can use it.’

Eduard’s militia isn’t exactly the SAS of Ukraine’s forces. It’s a volunteer army and he himself is a folk-singer-turned-fighter in his fifties. Eduard’s dozen-odd comrades are Dad’s Army age, yet even so they still have a formidable arsenal – everything from grenade launchers to Kalashnikovs.

I thought about Eduardo when Scotland Yard issued their recent warning about guns from Ukraine’s war finding their way on to Britain’s streets. There are ‘huge amounts of weapons’ in Ukraine which could fall into the hands of either criminals or terrorists, said Matt Twist, a senior counter-terrorism officer. Britain’s police, he said, were working hard to stop them coming in.

Good luck to Britain’s police. Anyone who has spent time in Ukraine and met the likes of Eduardo, and all the countless other unregulated militias, will know that this is easier said than done.

Remember the scenes when mayor Vitaly Klitschko, once a super-heavyweight, dished out 20,000 assault rifles to help defend the city? All manner of different sorts of Kyiv’s residents queued up, and these were just the folks who’d left arming themselves to the last minute. Many other Ukrainians had already bought shotguns and hunting rifles – not your genteel sporting numbers by Purdey & Sons either. One popular choice is the Ukrainian-made Zbroyar Z-15, which has a ten-round magazine and silencer. The Zbroyar Z-15 would not look out of place in the hands of a Nato sniper.