MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/. The Federal Security Service (FSB), in cooperation with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Guard, has seized 356 mines, 1,500 grenades, and over 250 kg of explosives from illegal weapons handlers during operations across 37 regions of Russia, the FSB press service told TASS.

"The illegal activities of 43 individuals from 32 regions involved in the illicit trafficking of weapons, as well as the restoration of civilian firearms in underground workshops and their sale, have been halted," the press service stated.

"Confiscated items include 200 firearms of domestic and foreign production: 9 machine guns, 75 assault rifles, 10 submachine guns, 71 pistols and revolvers, 35 rifles, carbines, and shotguns, as well as 17 grenade launchers, 356 anti-tank, anti-personnel, and mortar mines, 7 artillery shells, 1,503 grenades, over 250 kg of explosives (TNT, gunpowder), and more than 120,000 rounds of ammunition of various calibers," the press service noted. The operations also shut down 27 unauthorized workshops involved in weapon modification and ammunition production.

The raids targeted addresses in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sevastopol, the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, the republics of Altai, Crimea, North Ossetia-Alania, and Khakassia, as well as the Zabaykalsky, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Perm, Primorsky, and Stavropol territories. Additionally, operations were conducted in the Arkhangelsk, Belgorod, Voronezh, Jewish Autonomous, Irkutsk, Kaluga, Kemerovo, Kursk, Leningrad, Lipetsk, Moscow, Murmansk, Novgorod, Pskov, Rostov, Tomsk, and Kherson regions.

Efforts to detect and suppress illegal activities related to the trafficking, manufacturing, and modification of weapons are ongoing, the FSB underlined.