December 16, 2025:
After nearly four years of fighting in Ukraine , more Russian soldiers are reaching the end of their term of service and returning to Russia. Many of them are bringing their weapons home with them. Few try to sneak rifles into Russia, most of the weapons are pistols. These are either Russian models or U.S. and European pistols taken from dead or captured Ukrainian soldiers.
The hundreds of pistols returning to Russia has contributed to the increased lawlessness in cities and rural areas. While the Russian police forces have lost thousands of men to the army and Ukraine fighting, they are needed now, more than ever, because many of the returning soldiers were convicts granted pardons if they joined the army. These men brought back pistols so they could resume their criminal activities.
In many parts of Russia the reduction of the police force left these areas with no police at all. A few gangsters with guns could do whatever they wanted in these areas and often did. The government tried to keep stories of the armed gangsters out of the media, but those efforts only slowed the news down. As news leaked out to the public it was often exaggerated and embellished, scaring the Russian public even more.
Most of the returning soldiers were not former criminals and sought to sell their pistols. There was always a black market for pistols in Russia and now there were higher priced exotic weapons like Glocks, Sig Sauer and even a few Americans .45s/12.7mm pistols. Most collectors only had World War II vintage .45s , so the 21st century ones fetched premium prices. Some Russian soldiers in Ukraine, who were support troops and rarely in combat, sought to collect as many Western pistols as they could and get them all back to Russia and sell them for premium prices.
Back in Russia the police still had Russian weapons they were issued. These included the
Russian 9A-91 assault rifle which has been the standard national police automatic weapon since 1994. Most of the time police are armed with just a 9mm pistol. When more firepower is needed, they use their 9A-91 automatic weapons. Police training includes how to use and maintain the 9A-91. Most police personnel have served in the military and are already familiar with automatic weapons. The 9A-91 is not used by the military, except by some special operations Spetsnaz units.
The new PL-14 police pistol was a 9x19mm weapon that weighed .8kg empty, had a 127mm barrel and a 15 round magazine. The PL-14 was originally designed using suggestions from police and army veterans and special operations troops. Still, it was not ready for mass production and suggested changes were so extensive that by late 2015 the pistol got a new name, the PL-15. This is the PL-14 with modifications made based on feedback from hundreds of PL-14 users who received an initial production run of the PL-14 for field testing by soldiers and police. The PL-15 was available in lighter aluminum or polymer frames, had ambidextrous controls and an adjustable firing mechanism. Many changes were obviously to attract Russian customers who have tried Glocks and other Western models but would buy Russian if the pistol were competitive on looks and performance.
Since the 1950s the most common pistols used by the Russian military, and many police, has been the Makarov PM followed in 2003 by a small quantity of the unpopular MP-443 design. Neither were competitive with Western designs. The MP-443 itself was meant to replace the Makarov PM. However, lack of money in the defense budget, plus lack of user enthusiasm, meant few were bought and many Russian troops are still using the 1950's era Makarov PM.
The MP-443 used the world standard 9x19 pistol round, including the locally produced, hot loaded 7N21 armor-piercing round. MP-443 is a 0.59 kg empty, 184mm long pistol with a 112mm barrel and a 17 round magazine. While it's a relatively modern weapon, it is not as easy to handle as Western 9mm pistols and had a shorter 112mm barrel than most Western 9mm designs. It was not popular with Russian users who knew about the Western competition. The PL-15 was considered a Western design coming from a respected Russian firm. Kalashnikov had customer acceptance but not the expected big orders.
In 1951 the Makarov PM was introduced to replace all the 7.62mm pistols used during and before World War II. During that conflict, Russian troops captured a lot of German 9mm pistols and preferred them. Unfortunately, the Russian government wanted to improve on the German 9mm designs and one aspect of that was using a non-standard 9x18mm round and a small 8 round magazine. The Makarov PM also had a short 94mm barrel and while adequate for executing prisoners and other close-range situations, was not much better than the World War II pistols. Later models had larger 10 and 12 round magazines and a few other tweaks but the Makarov PM was always considered second rate.
Yet the Makarov PM was seen as a major improvement on the World War II era Tokarev 7.62mm pistols. Even before World War II the 7.62x25 pistol round was losing out to the more compact, slower moving 9x19 round. Both were developed in Germany. The 7.62x25 pistol round came first in the 1890s and was simply a shorter, much less powerful, rifle cartridge. While popular at first it was largely displaced in 1902 with the development of the 9x19mm round. The 9mm round was shorter, had less of a kick, less propellant and allowed for the design of more compact and easier to handle pistols. Meanwhile, the Russians developed a more powerful 7.62x25 round that had more propellant, higher velocity and used steel core bullets that had more penetration for their popular World War II submachine guns. This 7.62x25 Tokarev could fit in pistols using the less powerful 7.62x25 round but was not safe to use that way. A weapon had to be sturdy enough to handle the 7.62x25 Tokarev safely. Any pistol firing the Tokarev round was heavier and had quite a recoil compared to 9mm ammo. Meanwhile, the 7.62x25 Tokarev proved outstanding in Russian submachine guns. Despite its larger longer size and greater kick, the 7.62x25 Tokarev continued to be popular as a pistol round in some parts of the world but for most pistol users the 9mm or American .38 caliber was preferred. Russia stopped making 7.62x25mm pistols in 1954 because users were eager to get the new Makarov PM. Even though many were disappointed in the Makarov PM it was considered an improvement over the Tokarev round pistols.