SIMFEROPOL, July 30. /TASS/. Arms deliveries to Ukraine create problems for Western donors themselves, as such weapons may end up in the hands of criminal groups, said Speaker of the State Council of the Republic of Crimea Vladimir Konstantinov.

Earlier, the ANSA news agency reported, citing Palermo Chief Prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia, that the Italian Mafia is seeking to buy drone weapons that have emerged on the black market during the Ukrainian conflict. According to the 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. Earlier, the Berliner Zeitung newspaper wrote that without proper control, weapons supplied to Ukraine may flow to the European black market.

"This already happened many times before," the Crimean official said, commenting on black market sales of weapons delivered to Ukraine. "Western arms supplies to Ukraine backfire on them [arms suppliers]. Ukraine is a very vulnerable location from this standpoint."

The official said that weapons supplied to Ukraine "are not limited to the Italian Mafia."

"One may expect them [weapons supplied to Ukraine] to resurface at any location on the globe, because all chains of arms trafficking include conflict zones. Weapons are written off as damaged in combat, as if they no longer exist," Konstantinov said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry’s official spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said in mid-July that the number of crimes committed with the use of illegal weapons and ammunition in Ukraine surged by more than 40 times over the past few years. Moscow has repeatedly emphasized that arms deliveries to the Kiev government are unable to reverse the situation on the battlefield and will only protract the conflict.