KIEV, April 21. /TASS/. Volunteers for the territorial defense in those areas of Ukraine that are not experiencing any active fighting should hand over their firearms for storage, Commander of the Territorial Defense Forces Yury Galushkin said on Thursday.

"It’s time we rounded up these arms and sent them back to special storage sites, where they could be attended to, used for training purposes or for fulfilling tasks," Galushkin said in an address to volunteers published by the Ukrainian army’s territorial defense on Facebook (Internet platform banned in Russia since it is owned by the Meta Corporation deemed extremist by Russian authorities).

It is vital to store guns properly, the commander said, advising volunteers to get back to their old jobs.

In February, the Kiev regime started arming volunteers. On March 4, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree allowing Ukrainian and foreign civilians to use firearms for a "nationwide pushback against Russia". On March 15, the country’s Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky said people had already been armed with "tens of thousands of guns".