Civilian Firearms in Ukraine: How Much Is Enough?

May 30, 2022February 1, 2026

From June 1, the Ibis store chain in the capital will resume selling firearms. AR-15 rifles and other .223 caliber weapons should appear on shelves. If this holds true, I can predict the first shipments will sell out instantly. Especially since Ukrainians’ attitudes toward total armament shifted dramatically. Society no longer debates whether to arm up. According to polls conducted in Ukraine, an overwhelming majority now supports it. The debate around civilian firearms in Ukraine moved far beyond theory — war made it urgent reality.

We returned to this topic more than once and maintain that Ukraine must become more armed than the state of Texas, for example. The reason is simple and the answer to “Why?” you can find on any political map. Just look at what borders Texas and what borders Ukraine. Our position is clear: we need to forget the Soviet-era stamps that shaped the entire culture of weapons ownership.

Dump the “Hunting and Sports” Fiction

Right now you can go to any firearms store website and find that every weapon comes with the label “for hunting and sports”. This exhaustive definition fundamentally excludes the possibility that weapons could serve any other purpose… Do we not have eight years of war with an aggressor or 3+ months of full-scale war to acknowledge that weapons serve purposes beyond “hunting and sports”? Don’t we see what the occupier does on our land? Don’t we understand what they do to civilian populations left without protection from our army, police and other security forces?

We maintain that every Ukrainian citizen must be armed to the teeth, until this poisonous and deadly entity currently calling itself the russian federation crumbles into small pieces that lose their danger simply due to their size. And until we know that any suspicious movement from that side at any point on our border will be destroyed quickly and precisely, just in case, since we have bitter experience of where such movements lead. This speaks to the need for buffer zones on their side.

Only after that can we revisit the discussion about whether to continue total civilian armament or not. I think a people who endured a brutal war of extermination will hardly play with firearms for fun and create some special problems from it. In Switzerland, citizens of conscription age keep massive amounts of automatic firearms at home and we hear nothing about any incidents. Among us, when practically everyone witnessed the consequences of weapons use, people already understand what such weapons mean and how important careful handling is.

Civilian Firearms in Ukraine: Current Laws Serve No One

So let’s return to what rumors say and note that our current legislation regulates civilian firearms turnover through categories of “hunting and fishing”. This leads to truncated versions of combat weapons entering the market. The same AR-15 rifle lacks the ability to fire in bursts, by the way, same as civilian versions of AK. But if we’ve already matured to the idea that the population must be able to independently defend itself in critical situations, then all these categories, restrictions and other nonsense should have been thrown out long ago.

Every citizen of conscription age must have the unconditional right to either receive from the state or buy with their own money any firearms in any quantity. No restrictions on barrel length or automatic fire capability. You own your own house? Great, so you can afford not just a couple of automatic rifles and a rifle for long-range combat, but a machine gun too. And if your settlement has about a hundred such houses, then you’ll make the enemy reconsider not just entering, robbing and raping, but even approaching your settlement.

Simply the information that this is now permitted, and that a couple million pistols, a million machine guns and ten million automatic assault rifles spread among the population, will discipline any aggressor, even one as stubborn as the Orcs¹.

Impunity Breeds Monsters

Impunity corrupted this filth to the bone. Some Lavrov asks the USA not to give us long-range weapons. They can reach russian territory, he says. They destroyed our cities to rubble — normal. But the same for themselves — unacceptable. They say this openly. From their fat faces you can see they truly live in the paradigm of “But why us?”

At the micro level, the same pattern repeats with every specific murderer, rapist and sadist. Russians call them “Russian Soldiers”. We call them Pidars². A Pidar reveals himself where the Armed Forces withdrew. There he feels certain of impunity. He seeks situations where peaceful population ends up at his mercy.

All of us need to understand something. Khuilo³ rewarded the guard unit that committed genocide in Bucha. Any discussion about this horde respecting conventions on occupied territories proves pointless now. moscow never followed these conventions. That case became a signal for the entire deranged army: Act this way and no punishment follows. And they act accordingly.

Partisans Already Send the Signal

Our partisans already make them think twice about whether occupied territory is always safe. Today a powerful explosion occurred near the house where the occupiers’ gauleiter lives. The consequences of the explosion remain unknown, and whether they managed to send him to hell — unclear, but this is the right signal sent by local population. The same happened in Kherson, where they blew up the entrance of the Kherson gauleiter’s building, but all this is self-organized. People find where, how and with what to do it, and meanwhile the question of civilian firearms in Ukraine demands immediate legislative action.

All these stories about grandma feeding pies so that eight occupiers went to hell or about occupiers drinking vodka and staying down forever — sure, vivid and beautiful… But all this was done with improvised means and we only know about part of the successful operations. How many attempts failed? Who knows how many of our citizens died simply because they tried to destroy the enemy with improvised means, failed, and the brave soul got captured and killed?

Grandma’s Pies Won’t Cut It

Nobody knows this and possibly never will, but one thing we can know for certain: these people were ready to destroy the occupier but lacked the right tool. Something with a short barrel and a sound suppressor, for example. Then no one would need to resort to unreliable means that led to a partisan’s death. This is exactly why such brave citizens’ hands must hold reliable weapons and apply them for maximum effect.

All this scum that committed atrocities on our land will be hunted down and destroyed. But right now the punishment must come immediately and mercilessly, so the cause-and-effect connection stays obvious. Therefore right now we must make corresponding decisions and free up arms trade, primarily through legalizing all trophies captured from the enemy.

In the end, Ukraine must become a country that no one dares to touch — not only because it fields the most combat-ready army in the world, but because the entire population stands ready to fight and holds the necessary amount of civilian firearms in Ukraine to make that fight real.

¹Orcs – a common term for Russians who support or participate in the armed aggression against Ukraine. Dehumanizing? Yes. Accurate? Also yes.

²Pidar (pronounced “pidar”) – Ukrainian military slang for a Russian service member. In radio communications, the word “Pidar” sounds shorter and clearer than “Enemy” especially under EW.

³Khuilo – the most popular nickname for Russian dictator V. Putin. First used during the 2014 invasion, and since 2022 most Ukrainians call him only that. See more on Wikipedia.