- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has radically altered the country’s criminal underworld, a new report found.
- Russian drug traffickers have been forced to find new routes into and out of the country.
- The war has also led to a spike in synthetic amphetamines and opioids in Russia, per the report.
The fallout of Russia’s war in Ukraine has revived a period of criminal chaos in the country and radically shifted dynamics within Russia’s underworld drug trafficking gangs, according to a new report.
In “Time of Troubles,” a December 2023 assessment of the impact of the Ukraine war on Russia’s underworld, top Russia watcher Mark Galeotti, writing for the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, reported that Russia’s invasion has resulted in the overhaul of major narcotics routes once used by Russian gangs.
Before the war, Russia served as a hub for cross-border flows of all types of illicit products, such as money, guns, drugs, and people throughout Europe and beyond. Ukraine’s criminal underworld once played a key role in distribution, Galeotti said during a Monday presentation on his report.
But since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian gangsters have suddenly “rediscovered their patriotism,” Galeotti said during the presentation, and are refusing to cooperate with the Russians. Ukraine’s cold shoulder coupled with the closing of land routes in countries like Finland have forced Russian gangsters to find alternative drug routes.
In order to get product out of Russia and into other parts of Europe, traffickers are increasingly turning to Belarus as a new crucial transit hub, according to the report.
Despite border controls set up throughout Europe, heroin, cocaine, and other narcotics are being smuggled out of Russia via Belarus, Galeotti said, while sanctioned items such as microchips and luxury goods are being smuggled in.
The larger criminal networks in Russia have suffered under the new dynamics, Galeotti said, but smaller gangs once relegated to the backwaters of the Belarus border are suddenly reaping in the rewards.
The war has also impacted demand for narcotics within Russia itself.
While some international drugs such as cocaine and heroin are still finding their way into the country from countries in Latin America, economic pressure on ordinary Russians’ pocketbooks due to wartime sanctions has changed the game, according to the report.
Even before the war, cocaine was too expensive for most of Russian society, while the use of heroin is on the decline throughout the country, the report said.
The lack of affordable drugs coupled with unreliable trafficking routes has led to a spike in synthetic drugs throughout Russia, according to the report.
Synthetic opioids are cheaper to manufacture and more accessible for ordinary Russians, Galeotti said.
The war has also sped up the use of synthetic amphetamines such as mephedrone — known as “salt” in Russian slang — because of increased consumption in cities like Donetsk, where many soldiers are either based or take leave, according to the report.
A Royal United Service Institute report from May found that some Russian soldiers were being given amphetamines to lower their inhibitions while in combat. Meanwhile, a Russian news outlet in October reported soldiers are getting hard drugs delivered to their trenches to stave off boredom.
Soldiers have already started to bring addictions back home which has led to a spike in “salt-related cases” in places like Krasnador, Moscow, Kostroma, Kurgan, and Chelyabinsk, Galeotti reported.
Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Russia’s minister of internal affairs, admitted during a July 2023 anti-drug committee meeting that while imports of synthetic drugs from abroad has gone down, domestic production has spiked, according to the Galeotti’s report.
It’s a problem that is unlikely to disappear even once the war is over.
“Given the terrible conditions currently experienced by soldiers in Ukraine, including exposure to atrocities, it is likely that the ongoing war will lead to a comparable and sustained increase in the use of drugs for self-medication,” Galeotti wrote.
