MOSCOW, February 16. /TASS/. Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers, in cooperation with the Interior Ministry and the Russian National Guard, have seized more than 100 weapons from illegal gunmakers in 37 regions, the FSB Public Relations Center (PRC) reported.

"The illegal activities of 86 residents from 37 regions of the country involved in the illegal trafficking of weapons, as well as restoration of combat features of civilian firearms in underground workshops and their sale, were stopped," the PRC reported.

In December 2025 and January 2026, FSB officers held operational-investigative actions at the residences of illegal gunmakers. "As a result, 124 firearms of domestic and foreign manufacture were seized from illegal circulation: 11 assault rifles, 40 pistols and revolvers, 73 rifles, carbines, and shotguns, 5 grenade launchers, as well as 36 grenades, more than 19.6 kg of explosives (TNT, gunpowder), and over 15,000 rounds of ammunition of various calibers," the FSB reported. The law enforcement officers stopped the activities of 19 underground workshops modernizing weapons and manufacturing ammunition.

The operation was conducted in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Sevastopol, the Lugansk People’s Republic, the republics of Altai, Karelia, Crimea, Mordovia, Sakha (Yakutia), North Ossetia-Alania, Tyva, and Khakassia, as well as in the Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Primorsky, and Stavropol Regions, and the Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Belgorod, Volgograd, Voronezh, Irkutsk, Kaliningrad, Kaluga, Kemerovo, Leningrad, Magadan, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod, Pskov, Rostov, Sverdlovsk, Tambov, Tver, Tomsk, Tula, Ulyanovsk, and Kherson Regions.

"Efforts to identify and prevent illegal activities related to the trafficking, production, and modification of weapons continue," the FSB Public Relations Center emphasized.