Smuggling

War in Ukraine helps smugglers in the black market get richer

A separatist commander is gunned down while dining in a Moscow restaurant. Law enforcement agents uncover a makeshift underground pipeline pumping oil from Russia into a Ukrainian border village. Rebel leaders carry out a widespread purge in one of Ukraine’s breakaway regions, detaining senior officials and military personnel alike.

Seemingly disparate events, but is the black market the common link?

A key conduit for international contraband, Ukraine has a rich heritage of smuggling. Mafia syndicates have long operated in the country’s rough-and-ready, eastern Donbas region, and the turmoil of war there has done little to disrupt the interconnected underworlds of Russia and Ukraine. Rather, conflict has simply opened up a new front in economic opportunities for war profiteers, corrupt public officials and the criminal classes to exploit.