MOSCOW. Sept 6 (Interfax) - Two hundred and seventeen illegal arms makers were detected in 53 regions of Russia in June-July 2023, and 84 illegal workshops upgrading weapons were shut down, the public relations center for the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Wednesday.
"The Russian Federal Security Service working together with the Russian Interior Ministry and the Russian National Guard has put a stop to the illegal activity of 217 residents of 53 constituent territories of the country who restored civilian weapons to military grade at illegal workshops and sold them," the public relations center said.
Eighty-four illegal workshops, which upgraded weapons and made ammunition, were shut down, it said.
The operation was carried out in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sevastopol, the republics of Altai, Bashkortostan, Dagestan, Karelia, Crimea, Mordovia, North Ossetia-Alania, Tatarstan, Udmurtia and Chuvashia, and the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics.
Perpetrators were also detected in the Altai, Transbaikal, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Perm, Primorye, Stavropol and Khabarovsk territories, the Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Bryansk, Vladimir Volgograd, Vologda, Voronezh, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Kursk, Kurgan, Murmansk, Magadan, Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Oryol, Penza, Rostov, Ryazan, Sverdlovsk, Saratov, Smolensk, Tyumen, Tomsk, Tula, Kherson and Chelyabinsk regions and the Jewish Autonomous Region.
A total of 757 pieces of domestic and foreign weapons, including 22 machineguns, 58 submachine guns, 251 rifles, a carbine and a gun, were seized, the FSB said.
Seven grenade launchers, 704 artillery rounds and mines of various caliber, 210 grenades, 75 electric detonators and fuses, over 87 kilograms of explosives (gunpowder, TNT), more than 70,000 rounds of various calibers and 830 main parts of firearms were seized, too.