U.S. Gunmakers Shipping Rifles To Ukraine To Battle Russian Invaders

Adrian Kellgren’s family-owned gun company in Florida was left holding a $200,000 shipment of 400 semi-automatic rifles after a longtime customer in Ukraine suddenly went silent during Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the country, Joshua Goodman reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: Adams Arms, another Florida-based gun company, posted on its Facebook account a video of what it said is a shipment of carbine rifles destined for Ukraine.

Kellgren and his company KelTec decided to put those stranded 400 guns to use, sending them to Ukraine’s nascent resistance movement to help civilians fight back against a Russian military that has been repeatedly shelling their apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, and hiding places.

“The American people want to do something,” said Kellgren, a former US Navy pilot. “We enjoy our freedoms, we cherish those things. And when we see a group of people out there getting hammered like this, it’s heartbreaking.”

KelTec expects to ship 10,000 more rifles to Ukraine, the maximum exports allowed by the US government.

Another Florida company, Adams Arms, posted on its Facebook account a video of what it said is a shipment of carbine rifles destined for Ukraine. The company has also started selling T-shirts emblazoned with the iconic final broadcast of a bombarded Ukrainian Border Guard unit that told a Russian warship to “Go (expletive) Yourself!” Proceeds from shirt sales will go to the Ukrainian National Bank’s war funds.

While rifles are no match for Putin’s firepower of Sukhoi fighter jets and cluster bombs, they can play an important role if the Russians get bogged down in street-to-street combat, retired US Army Major John Spencer said.

The semi-automatic rifles KelTec is shipping are perhaps even more valuable than high-tech, anti-aircraft missiles that require extensive training beyond the reach of most civilians, many of whom have never even held a gun before, he said.

“Every shipment of firearms is critical,” said Spencer, an urban warfare analyst at the Madison Policy Forum, a New York-based think tank. “You’re giving one more fighter, out of tens of thousands, the opportunity to resist with a simple-to-use weapon.”

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