This section focuses on civilian firearms possession. It first examines shifts in public perceptions of firearms since 2022, before delving into an analysis of civilians’ accessibility to and possession of firearms. The section then analyses the general population’s knowledge and use of the new Unified Register of Weapons, which the government launched in June 2023.
Public perceptions of firearms
Attitudes towards civilian firearms possession in Ukraine have shifted significantly in recent years. Prior to 2022 most Ukrainians did not support the liberalization of civilian firearm ownership (ALI, 2023). In 2019 only 23 per cent of respondents supported the legalization of civilian firearms possession (Schroeder et al., 2019), a figure that was even lower in 2015 (11 per cent), according to the Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation (ALI, 2023). Support for civilian firearms possession has increased since 2022, however.
In response to the full-scale invasion in February 2022, an unspecified but relatively large number of small arms[1] were distributed to civilians to support territorial defence, and Ukrainians have not been eager to return these weapons (Maznychenko, 2023). As the nation mobilized for war, attitudes towards civilian weapons seem to have shifted, and it appears probable that this will lead to the greater circulation of firearms among civilians.
Surveys administered by other organizations have found that a majority of the population support the adoption of regulations allowing the civilian possession of firearms.[2] In the aftermath of the 2022 invasion and the initial Ukrainian successes—such as the defeat of Russian troops in the Battle of Kyiv in April 2022—public opinion shifted dramatically. A survey by the Rating Group conducted in May 2022 revealed that 58 per cent of citizens supported civilians’ right to own firearms, compared to only 39 per cent who opposed it (Light et al., 2023). Based on our surveys, however, the perception that firearm ownership is a necessity for Ukrainian civilians has somewhat diminished since the initial shock of the invasion. While 40 per cent of respondents supported civilian firearm ownership in January 2023, this figure declined to 30 per cent in December 2023. At that time, 41 per cent of men and 21 per cent of women agreed that it is necessary to possess firearms ‘in their area’.
Firearms accessibility and possession
Somewhat counterintuitively, the full-scale invasion complicated Ukrainian civilians’ ability to access firearms. In 2019 only 5 per cent of surveyed Ukrainians thought that acquiring a firearm was very difficult or even impossible. This proportion jumped to 33 per cent by January 2023, reflecting a surging demand not met by existing supply. In December 2023, 26 per cent of surveyed people held this view, and only 10 per cent of all respondents (13 per cent among men) considered it ‘easy’ to obtain a firearm (see Figure 3). Perceptions of access to ammunition are similar, with only 10 per cent of respondents finding it easy and 27 per cent perceiving it as very difficult to nearly impossible to acquire ammunition. As of December 2023 respondents living in households with veterans (from the ATO or full-scale war) or combatants were almost as sceptical as the general population with respect to their access to firearms: only 12 per cent of households with veterans or combatants reported such access to be easy, compared to 10 per cent of the full sample. These findings suggest that weapons remain in high demand at the front but that leakages to the rest of Ukraine are fairly well controlled.
The surveys provide an opportunity to observe both the prevalence and distribution of firearms in Ukrainian households. While several other indicators tend to fluctuate over time, the proportion of households that report possessing a firearm has remained remarkably stable compared to the pre-invasion era.
The survey findings indicate only a marginal change in household firearm ownership as of December 2023. In comparison to 2019, when it stood at 6 per cent, the self-reported rate of household firearms possession remained strikingly consistent at 5.6 per cent in late 2023. This small variation falls well within the sampling error margin, suggesting that the changes recorded up to that date may be attributed to fluctuations inherent in survey methodology. The household firearms possession rates in the previous waves of surveys were 5.3 per cent in January 2023 and 6.7 per cent in September 2023.
Moreover, the total number of firearms that the sampled households reported they owned decreased by 15 per cent in December 2023 when compared to pre-invasion levels. In a previous survey the 1,750 respondents reported possessing a total of 143 firearms just before the February 2022 invasion. In contrast, the 1,750 respondents surveyed in December 2023 reported owning only 122 firearms. Not all households that possessed firearms specified the number they possessed,[3] so these numbers should not be considered as comprehensive. The majority (70 per cent) of those who specified the number of firearms they owned said they possessed only one firearm, about a fifth (22 per cent) reported having two, with the remainder (8 per cent) owning more than two firearms.
Consistent with previous studies (see, for instance, Hideg and Watson, 2023), men and women can give sharply different accounts of firearm ownership at both the personal and household levels.[4] In the December 2023 survey, male respondents were nearly three times as likely to report the presence of a firearm in their home (8.9 per cent) than women (2.8 per cent). This is partly related to the fact that some of the female respondents live in households without men (who tend to be the main firearm owners), so these households are less likely to own firearms. But even when including only households that have an adult male member, male respondents were twice as likely to report firearms at home (8.7 per cent) than female respondents (4.3 per cent). Overall, these results align with previous research that suggested that men are more forthcoming than women in responding to firearm-related questions (Dönges and Karp, 2014). In other words, when it comes to households that have adult male members, the responses of men may more accurately capture levels of firearm ownership than those of women.
Researchers acknowledge that self-reported firearms possession data can generally suffer from latency. Survey-based estimates often face criticism for potentially underestimating firearms possession due to the discomfort or fear of self-incrimination that can be associated with disclosing such information to an unknown interviewer. In our previous Situation Update (Hideg, 2023), we used the experimental Network Scale-Up Method for estimating firearms possession, which draws on respondents reporting the presence of firearms in their close private networks. This approach generated higher proportions of firearm-owning households (nearly 11 per cent) in the summer of 2023 than when using the traditional self-reporting method (6.7 per cent). Further experimenting of these different approaches to measuring household firearm ownership has the potential to improve the reliability of estimates.
Firearms registration: the Unified Register of Weapons
In June 2023, the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs launched the Unified Register of Weapons (Savin, 2023; LeBrun and Shaban, 2023; MVS, n.d.). This initiative introduced digital registration procedures to ensure effective controls over the full life cycle of civilian-held firearms, as well as aimed to enhance the monitoring of firearms distributed or acquired since the full-scale invasion.[5]
Our December 2023 survey reveals that, five months after the launch of the registry, 41 per cent of Ukrainians were aware of the new system, including 15 per cent who claimed to know what it entailed. The majority of respondents (59 per cent), however, were unaware of the existence of the registry. Among those who reported owning a firearm at home, 61 per cent were aware of the registry, including the 40 per cent who reported having knowledge of its details. On the other hand, a significant minority of respondents in firearm-owning households (39 per cent) declared being unaware of the Unified Register of Weapons. This lack of awareness was quite consistent across genders, with 40 per cent of men and 36 per cent of women in firearm-owning households reporting no prior knowledge of the registry.
The survey also asked respondents from firearm-owning households whether they recorded their firearms in the Unified Register of Weapons. Across all firearm-owning households, less than half (45 per cent) indicated that their weapons were entered into the registry. Among respondents whose households own firearms and know about the registry, almost three-quarters (74 per cent) stated that all their firearms were registered. Approximately 10 per cent of respondents in this group reported owning firearms that were not recorded in the registry, while 16 per cent were uncertain or declined to respond. The small number of respondents with unregistered firearms typically cited a lack of time as the reason for not registering their weapons.
[1] According to one source, 10,000 automatic rifles were handed out in Kyiv alone (Gutowski, 2022), and similar arming of civilian territorial defence has taken place in the country’s northern and eastern oblasts. Other sources report that 25,000 automatic rifles and 10 million rounds of ammunition were handed out in Kyiv (Khurshudyan, O’Grady, and Morris, 2022).
[2] See, for example, ALI (2023).
[3] Approximately 16 per cent of firearm owners did not specify the number of guns they owned in December 2023, compared to only 9 per cent during the pre-invasion period.
[4] For example, in Nigeria; see Small Arms Survey and PRESCOM (2021, pp. 45–48).
[5] Over the four months between June and September 2023 about 50,000 new military firearms licences were issued and 87 per cent of applications were approved (Savin, 2023).
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