MOSCOW, July 29. /TASS/. Support to the Ukraine conflict from European governments has prompted the establishing of a technology hub for organized crime across the globe, including for the Italian Mafia, Russian Senator Alexander Voloshin from the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) told TASS.

Earlier, ANSA news agency reported, citing Palermo Chief Prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia, that the Italian Mafia are seeking to buy drone weapons that have emerged on the black market during the Ukraine conflict. According to Il Fatto quotidiano newspaper, since 2022, around 800,000 weapons and munitions originating from Ukraine but which actually came from European supplies have turned up on the European black market.

"Today, the criminal world is using the playbook from the Ukraine conflict with as much attention as it once analyzed local wars in the post-Soviet space and Yugoslavia," the Russian senator argued. "It has embraced both the technology of using drones and cutting-edge weapons and the principles of setting up shadow supply channels, illicit logistics and international cooperation the West has been using to support Ukraine. In effect, a new criminal ecosystem with Kiev as its hub is in the making <…>, with (Ukraine) becoming an incubator of modern crime technology," he added.

Even as weapons may disappear after hostilities end, the skills, supply channels and contacts between criminal groups will remain, Voloshin maintained. The news from Italian prosecutors shows that Ukraine is morphing into Europe’s largest hub for weapons trafficking and the potential impact from it will inevitably spill over, he warned.

"European elites have convinced themselves that they can turn a blind eye to where weapons for Ukraine come from, a lack of control over the movement of weapons or the criminalization of the corrupt Ukrainian regime. The same mechanisms have been working against Europe itself: today, the Italian Mafia are seeking attack drones, and tomorrow drug cartels, international terrorist cells and other organized crime groups will show a similar interest," he concluded.