Just months after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, rumors began spreading online that Ukraine sold weapons provided by the United States and other Western countries on the black market to various militant and criminal groups.
As early as June 2022, BBC reported that Russian state TV "
More recently, on Feb. 10, 2025, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson claimed the "Ukrainian military is selling American weapons systems on the black market, including to drug cartels" on the U.S.-Mexico
The Ukrainian military is selling American weapons systems on the black market, including to drug cartels. This war is killing the United States. Col. Daniel Davis on how Donald Trump can end it.
(0:00) Why Crimea Is So Pivotal
(13:17) Ukraine Is Powerless Without the US
(31:16)… pic.twitter.com/PgL3og9lTE— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 10, 2025
Snopes readers also asked via email whether Ukraine sold American weapons on the black market or to various militant or criminal groups, including Hamas, Syrian rebel groups and Mexican drug cartels.
These claims are not backed by credible evidence and may be part of a Russian disinformation campaign. While it is not possible to definitively disprove that U.S. or European weapons sent to Ukraine have ended up in the hands of militant or criminal groups, the information available suggests these rumors are not founded in truth; reports from reputable researchers have found "no instances of arms trafficking of weapons out of Ukraine." Furthermore, the Ukrainian government is not only eschewing any participation in selling U.S. weapons, it is attempting to disrupt or block any illicit arms trafficking happening in Ukraine.
However, arms trafficking by criminals is still a legitimate potential issue within Ukraine — as it usually is in regions of conflict.
A Russian disinformation campaign
In a 2022 BBC report, journalists went undercover on the dark web to debunk accusations made by Russian state media about Ukraine's purported illicit weapons sales. The report found multiple inconsistencies casting doubt on these accusations; for example, some sellers mentioned by Russian media posted manipulated images of Syrian weapons to pass them off as Ukrainian.
Furthermore, BBC showed its conversations with purported Ukraine weapons sellers to linguists, who determined that "there is substantial evidence that the messages written in Ukrainian were translated from Russian with the help of an online translator." Examples included numerous grammatical errors and typos which "meant the online translator could not understand them, and left the original words" in Russian written with Russian letters.
Arms trafficking in Ukraine limited to isolated incidents
By and large, "the conflict in Ukraine is absorbing weapons, not releasing them," according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. "The intensity of the fighting in the east and south has resulted in materiel being used as soon as it arrives," the organization found.
The U.S. Department of Defense and Ukraine also work together to track American arms sent to Ukraine and where they end up. Detailed investigations and oversight reports on Ukraine-related spending can be found on the U.S. government's Ukraine Oversight webpage.
Officials under both former President Joe Biden's and President Donald Trump's administrations have contradicted claims that the United States doesn't know where its aid to Ukraine is going.
Biden's undersecretary of defense for policy, Colin H. Kahl, said in 2023 that "we think the Ukrainians are using properly what they've been given." Trump's special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Gen. Keith Kellogg, said on Feb. 5, 2025, that "we have put inspector generals in the ground in Ukraine, in Europe to track that money and we have a pretty good idea where it's going" (see 2:18).
Despite assurances otherwise, there is evidence that the United States and Ukraine do not know where some of the weapons America sends to Ukraine are ending up. A 2024 Department of Defense audit report found the agency failed to properly track $1 billion worth of military equipment sent to Ukraine; the Pentagon's poor accounting is a known issue that extends far beyond Ukraine.
However, a Defense Department spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, said shortly after the report published that "there remains no credible evidence of illicit diversion of U.S.-provided, advanced conventional weapons from Ukraine." "We do see some instances of Russia continuing to spread disinformation to the contrary," he added.
A 2022 report from the Pentagon's inspector general found that criminals, volunteer fighters and arms traffickers in Ukraine stole some American-provided weapons and equipment, but the items were recovered by Ukraine's security service (pages 7 and 8). The report, titled "The DoD's Accountability of Equipment Provided to Ukraine," does not list any militant groups or locations outside of Ukraine or Russia as places where these weapons were intended to go or ended up in.
Finally, a June 2024 report from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime found no "confirmed instances of arms trafficking of weapons out of Ukraine." Most weapons seized and sold on the black market in Ukraine are "overwhelmingly Soviet- or Russian-type trophy weapons captured on the battlefield or taken from weapons dumps, although there have been isolated attempts to steal Western weapons," the
Still, the initiative's report warned that "as with the war itself, the governing conditions of illegal weapons may quickly change," and "the lack of current activity does not imply an absence of risk" (pages 29 and 7).
In conclusion, there is no credible evidence that American weapons sent to Ukraine are ending up in Mexico, Syria, Gaza or any location outside of Ukraine, and claims otherwise may be attributed to Russian disinformation campaigns. The United States and Ukrainian governments have attempted strict oversight of their weapons — to mixed results — but any arms trafficking happening in Ukraine appears, as of this writing, to be contained to isolated incidents by criminals.