The Way of the Gun

This windfall inheritance and skilled workforce means today Ukraine is the fourth-largest arms exporter in the world, with about $1.3 billion sales

$11 million sales of small arms from Ukraine

most likely a fraction of the real amount shipped out

But an insight is sorely needed. Between 2006 and 2011 there were about $117 million worth of registered firearm exports from there, but this may be but a drop in the ocean of arms that have really left the ports of the Black Sea

NISAT has no detailed data on exports from Ukraine in 2001. In 2007 there was nothing recorded having been sent to South Sudan – 40,000 machine-guns were listed as heading to Kenya and 1,000 rifles to Chad. Only in 2010 was NISAT able to list 10,000 sub-machine-guns and 3,000 rifles publicly as heading to the DRC

Traces of these journeys, though, are not easy to find. The organisation that charts small-arms transfers – NISAT – shows virtually no records that these shipments ever left Ukraine

n. They had all begun their journeys in Ukraine.

allegedly headed for South Sudan

near the bleached beaches of Kenya’s Mombasa

MC Beluga Endurance, a ship flying the flag of Antigua and Barbuda