A group of local treasure hunters got more than they bargained for when they discovered a secret cache of explosives and ammunition on Kyiv’s Trukhaniv Island.
According to Ukraine’s National Police, the unnamed individuals were looking for sunken items in the water of the Dnipro with a magnet on April 29 when they found a bucket containing a package of grenades and ammo.
One of the treasure hunters called the police, and explosive technicians and an investigative group were dispatched to the scene. There they discovered four grenades, detonators, five sticks of dynamite, 10 rounds for a grenade launcher, five magazines for a machine gun, and more than 1,500 rounds of different calibers. Police are currently investigating to identify the owners of the weapons.
Since the start of the war in the Donbas in 2014, the spread of weapons and explosives — particularly hand grenades — has become a growing problem in Ukraine.
In a November 2017 interview with Hromadske TV, National Police Chief Serhiy Knyazev said that grenades had been used as a murder weapon in 39 cases that year.
“We opened the weapons arsenal, and our enemies did the same,” Knyazev said, explaining the problem’s origins.
Just days before the discovery on Trukhaniv Island, a grenade went off inside a moving car in Kyiv, killing one passenger and badly injuring another.
In March, an unknown assailant fired a grenade launcher at a restaurant in central Kyiv. A month later, someone fired an anti-tank grenade launcher at the headquarters of leading property developer Kyivmiskbud, also in central Kyiv.
No one was injured in either attack. In the latter case, police categorized the incident as “hooliganism.”
