Speculations about where militias of Novorossia take their weapons from started simultaneously with the emergence of the armed conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine. The West and Kiev claim that it is Russia that provides the pro-Russian fighters with weapons. Pravda.Ru asked expert opinion from historian and military expert Boris Yulin.
"Donbass is a significant, densely populated industrial region of Ukraine, with its own infrastructure. The militias of Donbass show resistance to the lumps of the current Kiev authorities that moved the ruins of the Ukrainian military machine against them. But the Ukrainian machine is stronger, of course. As for the weapons, the Ukrainians speculate on the subject of the weapons stored at military warehouses in Ukraine. That is, the militias take weapons from the same place, where their opponents take them - the punitive units, the "Right Sector," and the armed forces of Ukraine."
"The militias have tanks, MANPADS, mortars, - it is clear from news reports ads on the Internet. In those ads, they seek operators of man-portable air defense systems, tankers, crews of combat vehicles."
"They removed two tanks from their pedestals and repaired them. They captured other tanks having taken control of the base of Ukrainian armored vehicles. There were tanks, armored personnel carriers and a bunch of other types of armored vehicles. All of that equipment is Ukrainian, starting from the first self-propelled vehicle that took part in the first combat action.
"Both sides use the weapons that were made in the USSR and that Ukraine inherited after the collapse of the USSR. Some of those weapons were made after the Soviet Union, on the territory of Russia and Ukraine.