Guns of Ukraine war picture thread

We've all been watching the news out of Ukraine and observing the hardware. Ukraine is unique in that they were in the early stages of transitioning to ditching the AK platform for M16 and Tavor variants. The Israelis signed a deal with FORT, one of Ukraine's arms makers, to make licensed copies of not only Tavors, but Negevs (5.56 belt-fed SAW) and Galil Aces. Ukraine also makes their own AR15/M16 called the WAC47, which has been issued in both 7.62x39 and 5.56 variants.

So far, I have yet seen all of these "in the wild" in the pictures from the war. Yet, the pictures coming do show a wide variety of rifles and machineguns.


Here we have group being trained by American volunteers and armed with brand spanking new FNCs donated by FN last week.

More new out of the crate rifles, this time, from America.


Here is one of the indigenously produced WAC47 rifles in 7.62x39


This appears to be a privately owned AR, perhaps a Zbroyar Z15?


Ukrainian special forces started buying and using SIG Virtus rifles back in 2020.



The only Tavor I have spotted in photos since the war began is this one.


Of course, not everyone has gotten the new stuff. There are still hundreds of thousands of AK74s and AK47s seen in the field right now. Many Ukrainian arms depots were bombed, which may account for not seeing a lot of the newer stuff. But an indicator of how desperate times are, I have seen evidence of the last ditch war stocks being issued. Such as,....

Old DP28s. Still effective, if the pans are in good shape. But no longer a front line weapon.


Here's an OP with an old DP and a sporterized Mosin


Why do they always give the heavy bich to the little guy?


One of these guys is stuck with an old PPS43, but at least he seems to have a Walther in his waistband.



And still a few Devil's Paintbrushes operating out there.



Some guys get all the neat stuff. This dude has the red dot optic, the drum and a suppressor.



And here's one you don't see often;...a bipod mounted ground deployed Dshk 12.7x108 belt-fed. This model uses a monster muzzle brake so that you can get your shoulder behind it and use it like a GPMG and not break your collar bone.



A captured Russian AK12. It seems these have become the status symbol in Ukraine, because you only get one by going out and taking it.

Good thread you started. CNN was interviewing a couple of civilians in Kyiv and they had a Broomhandle Mauser sitting on their buffet table. I’ve been keeping a sharp lookout for a photo of anybody using an APS Stechkin machine pistol. I carried one on my first two contracts in Iraq and loved it. Later, in 2008, I ran into a bunch of Ukrainian SF outside the PX in the IZ and each one carried an APS-they were surprised anybody knew what it was.




Have a great nun carryin’ bimbo day!

PS-I don’t read notifications anymore than I read junk mail but send em’ anyway if’n it makes you happy :dance:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10606423/RICHARD-PENDLEBURY-Brave-residents-vow-not-leave-Kyiv-Russian-forces-press-city.html

Sorry, not really up on the rifles there, maybe someone can ID

Supposedly US Vets and Blackwater paid to be there (but who can you believe these days.)


Guy on the right with a Tavor. Apparently the bullpup with the flared ejection port is a Malyuk, a locally produced weapon. Marketed as a Vulcan-M.


The license built Tavors (according to the article below the pic,) go by Fort-221.
Supposedly Ukrainian Marines, guy 2nd from right appears to have a Tavor or Fort-221 (lack of flared ejection port for one thing.)


https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44687/ukraines-indigenous-malyuk-bullpup-rifle-is-the-weapon-of-choice-for-its-special-operators


Don't know what this is,


edit: added link to "thedrive" article.

More curiosities from the front. This one is a captured Russian 9x39 suppressed VAL, freshly taken off the corpse blurred out here. But you can still see his guts splattered on the tarmac at Boryspil Airport.


Any civilian wishing to get armed and trained can do so. The local shooting clubs that still have access to ranges are filling the need. Here we see a club instructor using a Stribog 9mm carbine.


Plenty of civilian owned AR15s keep showing up in volunteer hands.


Lots of donated and brand new gear from the U.S. and elsewhere is showing up in deliveries from the western border. This unit received all new camo smocks, helmets, body armor and Bravo Company rifles. Unclear if these rifles were bought by some government and donated or came direct from Bravo.


Ammo logistics must be a fugging nightmare, as this photo shows many an eclectic mix of weapons and calibers in the same unit.


Another example of ARs and AKs serving side by side.


Another unit outfitted with ARs rather than AKs.



Another photo of the same unit. Notice dude 2nd from left has an AR10.

aroyobob said:

Sorry, not really up on the rifles there, maybe someone can ID

Supposedly US Vets and Blackwater paid to be there (but who can you believe these days.)
vets and blackwater in Ukraine.jpg

Guy on the right with a Tavor. Apparently the bullpup with the flared ejection port is a Malyuk, a locally produced weapon. Marketed as a Vulcan-M.
Ukranian SOF with ENICS Eeleron-3 recon drone.jpg

The license built Tavors (according to the article below the pic,) go by Fort-221.
Supposedly Ukrainian Marines, guy 2nd from right appears to have a Tavor or Fort-221 (lack of flared ejection port for one thing.)
somewhere in Ukraine.jpg

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44687/ukraines-indigenous-malyuk-bullpup-rifle-is-the-weapon-of-choice-for-its-special-operators


Don't know what this is,
Daily Mail 03-11-22.jpg

edit: added link to "thedrive" article.

Click to expand...

Ahhhh the “B word”. Blackwater hasn’t existed for years and never will again-too radioactive. That’s why even it kept changing names-not cuz’ of some secret squirrel clandestine deniability but because no security company investor wanted anything to do with all bio hazard level 4 baggage attached to it. While it was never as evil as portrayed by the “Left” (not that it didn’t do some pretty stupid scheisse at times), neither was it as high-speed and competent as idolized by the “Right”. Two years after Nisour Square EP changed their name to “Xe” (pronounced “zee”) which made everybody scratch their heads say, “Xe!? What the hell does Xe mean?”) then he sold “Xe”a couple years after that and they became “Academi”. Academi merged with “Triple Canopy” (a really f**ked up private security outfit) and it became “Constellis” who later got bought out by another corporation whose name escapes me. Somebody tried to revive the BeeDub brand a while back and sell some ammo with the name/logo but predictably there was some legal trouble and it went under.



Have a great nun carryin’ bimbo day!

PS-I don’t read notifications anymore than I read junk mail but send em’ anyway if’n it makes you happy! :dance: :dance: :dance:

Here's a video of a Ukrainian mortar team doing their thing. They are armed with 5.45x39 Malyuk bullpups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwIknv0eMQA

Grandma babushka is more operator than you.

And just in case you are contemplating heading to Ukraine to volunteer and kill a commie for Mommy,...here is video of some crash course live fire training just before the invasion, where instructors fire near their students to get them accustomed to being shot at. This is common training regimen in the region, we are told.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQQcGw87ABw&t

Lots of suppressors.

Suck My Glock said:

Grandma babushka is more operator than you.

Click to expand...

Belongs in girls with guns :lol:

Great pics SMG

Suck My Glock said:

And just in case you are contemplating heading to Ukraine to volunteer and kill a commie for Mommy,...here is video of some crash course live fire training just before the invasion, where instructors fire near their students to get them accustomed to being shot at. This is common training regimen in the region, we are told.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQQcGw87ABw&t

Click to expand...

“This is common training regimen in the region, we are told.”

Yeah, it is, and having seen the marksmanship skills of some of those former Warsaw Pact soldiers its a lot more dangerous than you think-it ain’t like Carlos Hathcock is shooting near those students. Eastern European armies are FAR more accepting of training casualties than we are. While in the US Army I spent a year in a former Soviet republic helping to prepare it for transition to NATO. They were kinda poor at the time and still developing their economy which meant they didn’t have a lot to spend on their military. Specifically they had “airborne” units but no planes (like C-130’s) to jump from and not even an airborne school, however all the officers were expected to “earn” jump wings (enlisted not so much). Basically they labeled these units as airborne in preparation for the day when they’d get enough funding to actually become paratrooper units and to build esprit (plus “airborne” sounded cool). So these guys were using old piece of sh!t French and Soviet parachutes (if a US Army rigger had packed chutes this raggedy and given them to troops they would’ve been charged with criminal negligence and dereliction of duty) and doing five jumps from an old AN-2 “Colt” Soviet era biplane to obtain their their jump wings. The planes weren’t certified, the chutes were never inspected, they had no riggers, and no SOP’s-what could go wrong? When you’d visit their unit go at any given time at least 25% of the officers were limping or on crutches. If they broke their leg on say their 3rd jump, they gimped around till it healed and did two more. One dude broke his leg TWICE in five jumps (amazingly nobody died). Were they tougher than your average US soldier? Oh yeah-definitely . Were they smarter than the average US soldier? Not as much.

Suck My Glock said:

And just in case you are contemplating heading to Ukraine to volunteer and kill a commie for Mommy,...here is video of some crash course live fire training just before the invasion, where instructors fire near their students to get them accustomed to being shot at. This is common training regimen in the region, we are told.

Click to expand...

Old Russian video from a few years ago.

Here's a new one today from Lviv. I decided to not reduce the size of the photo so that you too can also see the details I mention, if you look closely and use your glasses. The guy in the guillie suit is holding a commercial AR15 derivative, possibly a Colt or other brand. But notice it has the 16 inch "pencil profile" thin barrel and not the M4 profile so commonly found on U.S.-donated rifles. This is what gives it away as purchased (or donated) on the open market. Also notice it has a Vortex Strike Eagle on it. The suppressor is Finnish, from ASE UTRA. This is their AU RADIEN model. Suppressors are bought over the counter without regulation in Finland. This fits with reports that suppressors are unable to be kept in stock in European countries where they are unregulated hearing protection devices, as they have been bought up by supporters of the Ukrainian cause and sent there. The same is true of most combat gear in surplus stores all over Europe. Everything from gas masks to plate carriers and load bearing gear is nearly out of stock everywhere.

Here's a neat little vid of some guys in a Ukraine auto repair shop who are taking captured Russian vehicle-mounted PKTs recovered from destroyed enemy vehicles and converting them over to an improvised PKM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6dNqr7LQz8

Here's a few more pics of the Malyuk bullpup in the field.




Here's another example of a group of volunteers thrown together with a mish-mash of weapons in the same unit, ARs and AKs once again. This is in Sumy, and these appear to be recently arrived foreign volunteers judging from their clothing and gear, which is not Ukrainian issue. The next to left has entirely German gear except for his very new looking AR. The radical curvature of the AK mags indicates they are all older 7.62 models, seemingly pulled from old reserve war stocks somewhere since 5.45 AK74s are the vast majority of rifles in theater. The AK in the foreground has a modern western civilian accessory muzzle brake as well as a perforated steel handguard.



While this is not technically in Ukraine, it is at the border of Hungary and Ukraine, on the Hungarian side, at the Tiszabecs crossing. These are Hungarian troops there to protect against incursion and to help handle the refugee inflow. They are armed with the CZ BREN2 and CZ P07 sidearm.

Ukrainian weapons captured by the Russians on or around 2/28.

Ukrainian copy (Fort-301) copy of Israeli Galatz sniper rifle.

Z-10 (part of the same group of captured Ukrainian weapons from around 2/28.)

Here's an interesting pic of a Russian soldier who is carrying not only his own RPK, but has 3 slung Dragunovs he is lugging around as well. There is a fourth laying on the sleeping bag roll in front of him. It seems his unit must have been badly hit and was tasked with not leaving weapons behind for the Ukrainians that would be useful. And since he is on foot with his pack, I'm guessing his motorized transport was taken out of action. That's a long hard walk back with that much hardware.

“And since he is on foot with his pack, I'm guessing his motorized transport was taken out of action. That's a long hard walk back with that much hardware.”

That seems to be a reasonable explanation. If it were anybody else I’d “poor guy-that sux draggin’ around all that hardware. As is it I hope it slows him down enough for somebody to get a presentable sight picture on him.