Ukrainian lawmaker Marian Zablotsky has announced that the Miami Police Department has donated over 100 “confiscated” firearms to Ukraine, which will be issued to internal security and police forces rather than soldiers at the frontlines.
In a Facebook post, Zablotsky said “The first case in history of the transfer of small arms confiscated in the USA took place. 101 units of batch No. 1 are already in Kyiv. A gift from the police of the city of Miami, which was the first to decide on such a step. A wonderful donor donated 148,000 cartridges to her,” adding that “Oleksandr Markushyn (Mayor of Irpin)- your brand new rifles are already rushing to you!”
According to War Noir on Twitter, the firearms include ” a rare Cobray CM-11/Nine 9mm carbine, AR-15 rifles (including Smith & Wesson M&P 15), AK-platform rifles and pistols (Glock, HS, Beretta 92FS and more) can be seen.” It is important to note that the rifles are only semi-automatic.
According to the Ukraine Military Center, Zablotsky said “Actually, the idea arose to ask US citizens for their surplus weapons, because many simply have dozens of them. Many of them are ready to share surplus weapons – transfer them here. There are also a lot of confiscated weapons.”
Last June, the the Miami Police Department launched its “Guns 4 Ukraine buyback program,” which offered city residents $50 for handguns, $100 for shotguns and $150 for rifles. In total, 167 firearms were collected, with the aim of sending them to Irpin, the sister city of Miami. Some of the firearms seen in pictures from the buyback program appear to be the same ones in the recent shipment, suggesting those donated weapons were involved in this first batch of weapons, which Zablotsky said also included confiscated firearms from criminal investigations.
Similarly, the city of Phoenix has approved plans to donate 600 unclaimed firearms in the city’s possession to the National Police of Ukraine in Kyiv. The donation is being headed up by the Pennsylvania-based logistics company DTGruelle, who told AZ Mirror that “We had gotten the city of Miami to donate us firearms through their processes and then the city of Phoenix wanted to piggyback off of that and do their own initiative with us through our contact over at [the] Ukrainian parliament.”
DTGruelle noted that the transfer process is lengthy, stating that “This has taken such a long time because of the due diligence that the city needs to take, that we need to take, in reviewing the various regulations together to ensure that we’re doing this very responsibly.”
