"I need ammunition, not a ride"
attributed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
Ukraine - Rocket and Artillery Ammunition
On 20 August 2024, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi said that now the Russian army spends up to 45,000 ammunition every day, while the Armed Forces of Ukraine spends three times less. Syrsky announced this on the air of the telethon. From August 6 to 14, Russia spent 400,625 artillery ammunition in battles, which is an average of 44,500 per day. Instead, the Armed Forces used 131,461 shells, or 14,600 per day.Accordingly, according to Sirsky, the ratio of ammunition consumption in July-August this year was 3:1, which indicates an improvement in the situation, if compared with January-May (then the ratio was 7:1, or about 70 thousand to 10 thousand spent shells per day). Statistics of the Ukrainian General Staff show that last year in October-December, Russia spent more than 30,000 artillery ammunition every day, and Ukraine - up to 10,000. Even earlier, in August-September 2023, the Russian Federation launched about 20,000 shells every day, and the Armed Forces - about 13,000.
By mid-2024 Ukraine's need was 200,000 155mm shells a month, according to Defense Minister Rustem Umerov -- more than the EU and the United States combined can manage. Russian production is much higher than even the EU targets. Estimates of its annual capacity range from 4 to 4.5 million artillery shells. The total number of 155 mm artillery pieces at Ukraine's disposal rose from one at the start of the invasion to 500 to 600, said Mykola Byelyeskov, a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies in Kyiv and a senior defense analyst at the charitable foundation Come Back Alive, which supports Ukraine's military.
Since the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has experienced drastic ammunition shortages three times -- most recently this spring, when a six-month delay in a $61 billion U.S. aid package badly damaged its ability to defend against Russian forces. The United States says it has shipped more than 3 million 155 mm artillery rounds to Ukraine since February 2022. A single 155 mm round costs 3,000 to 5,000 euros. More advanced rounds can cost 8,000 euros.
In March 2024, the European Commission said that thanks to its measures, European annual production capacity for 155 mm shells had reached 1 million a month earlier. Three months later, in June, Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market, said that EU producers would reach an annual capacity of 1.7 million 155 mm shells by the end of this year and that capacity would continue to grow. However, according to a high-ranking European arms industry source, by July 2024 the current capacity was about one-third of this. Declarations of the EU leaders regarding the 155 mm production capacity that is to be reached by the end of this year are not reasonable. Production increases across Europe are lagging behind, with the total capacity reaching about 580,000 shells per year by mid-2024.
According to a December 2023 Estonian Defense Ministry report, the EU production capacity is about 600,000 shells a year. This fits with German arms maker Rheinmetall's January 2024 estimate, an internal document that journalists obtained, which says that all Western European arms makers taken together could produce around 550,000 shells annually as of the beginning of this year. Rheinmetall itself could make 350,000 shells, while the other top producers -- Finnish-Norwegian Nammo, the French branch of KNDS, Britain's BAE, and Slovakia's MSM -- could produce 200,000 shells. Gunpowder and TNT, necessary for ammunition production, are also in short supply in Europe because few producers exist.
"Serbia has been discreetly stepping up sales of ammunition to the west that ends up bolstering the defence of Ukraine — even though it is one of only two European countries not to join western sanctions against Russia" Alec Russell and Marton Dunai of the Financial Times reported 22 June 2024. "Estimates shared with the Financial Times put Serbia’s ammunition exports that have come to Ukraine via third parties at about €800mn... " President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic,said "Yes, we export our ammunition. We cannot export it to Ukraine or russia. But we had many contracts with the Americans, Spaniards, Czechs and others. What they will do with it in the end is their business".
Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said the first shipments procured under a Czech initiative to increase supplies of badly needed ammunition in Ukraine are now arriving and will continue to flow. "This year we will be able to procure and continuously deliver quite a lot of ammunition -- Czech-supplied through different channels -- more than a million of shells to Ukraine so far," Lipavsky said on 13 June 2024 in an interview with RFE/RL. The Czech Republic had been working for months on a plan to procure artillery shells from countries outside the European Union and provide them to Ukraine, whose troops in recent months have suffered from a debilitating shortage.
The Czech Republic showed excellent organizational skills, searching around the world and delivering ammunition to Ukraine, and is not afraid of revenge. The Czech Republic found about 800,000 artillery shells abroad, which can be sent to the Ukrainian military, the country's president Petr Pavel said 17 February 2024, speaking at the Munich Security Conference. According to the Czech president, representatives of the country managed to find about half a million 155 mm caliber shells and 300 thousand 122 mm caliber shells abroad, which can be shipped to Ukraine in a few weeks, if funding is found quickly. He noted that the Czech Republic will turn to partners from the USA, Germany, Sweden and other countries that can contribute to this.
European Commissioner for Finance Johannes Hahn promised at the Munich Security Conference that the EU will be able to produce up to two million artillery shells per year for Ukraine from 2025.
The Minister of Defense Rustem Umyerov admitted 01 February 2024 in a letter to the heads of the military departments of the EU countries that Ukraine is experiencing a "critical" shortage of artillery shells. He explained that the Armed Forces can release no more than two thousand shells per day on the front line, which is one and a half thousand kilometers long. This is three times less shells than Russia uses, the letter says.
The United States aimed to produce 100,000 shells per month or 1.2 million annually by 2025. Currently, the production rate stands at approximately 28,000 shells per month. In Europe, Germany-based Rheinmetall AG is the largest artillery shell producer, manufacturing 37,500 shells per month or 450,000 per year, while aiming fo 700,000 per year by 2025.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba said 06 February 2024 that in order for Ukraine to receive more ammunition from the EU, it is necessary to start negotiations with third countries that have contracted ammunition in Europe. "If you ask a soldier at the front what he needs, he will say ammunition. This answer was the same yesterday, a month ago, and a year ago. The scale of the war and the use of artillery by Russia has reached a level for which, let's be honest, European warehouses were not ready." Kuleba noted. The minister explained that for this "Ukraine is unprecedentedly increasing the production of projectiles, and the European Union is taking unprecedented measures for the production of ammunition and imports from other countries. It is necessary to enter into parallel negotiations with the states that have contracted the shells in Europe and tell them: 'Sorry, we need these ammunitions to protect Europe.'"
The European Union's top diplomat Josep Borrell on 31 January 2024 said the bloc would fall far short of its target to deliver 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine by March. Borrell was speaking after a meeting of EU defense ministers in Brussels and said that around 52% of the pledged ammunition would be delivered by deadline with the remaining shells expected to be sent by the end of 2024. "There was some initial inertia, but then once things get set in motion, they can speed up," Borrell said, as he tried to explain why the EU would not meet its determined deadline.
Ukraine warned its US-led Western allies that the Kiev forces were running out of ammunition, while Russian troops have made fresh military advancements on the war front. Ukraine's Defense Minister told Kiev's Western allies on 18 January 2024 that the Kiev forces were facing a "very real and pressing" ammo shortage. "A shortage of ammunition is a very real and pressing problem that our armed forces are facing at present," Ukraine Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said in a message posted on X, formerly Twitter, after speaking by video link to a gathering of allies led by France and the United States. The Ukrainian official claimed that Kiev's Western allies had formed a new "artillery coalition" to supply Kiev's troops with more ammo. "The artillery coalition is aimed at solving this issue."
French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced on Thursday that Paris will take charge of Kiev's ammo shortage issue, leading an ammunition and missile production coalition to meet the ammunition demands of the Kiev forces. Lecornu added that the newly-formed "artillery coalition aimed to strengthen military support for Kiev, both in the short and long term.”
“We need to switch to a logic of production, which makes it possible to connect the North American and European defense systems, and the Ukrainian army,” Lecornu further added. “It is an important shift that depends on our ability to go into a war economy which is a way of production, management of stocks, organization of workload, to respond to meet the delivery delays requirements of a customer at war,” he added. The step comes after Western countries vowed this autumn to better organize their armaments and ammunition production in a bid to not only keep up the huge supply of arms and ammunition to Ukraine but also, increase the provision of weaponry and munitions to the Kiev forces fighting a proxy war against Russia on behalf of the US-led Western countries.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are experiencing a shortage of 152 mm artillery shells after a series of attacks on military-industrial complex targets in Kyiv. This was reported 12 January 2024 to TASS by the chairman of the “We are together with Russia” movement, Vladimir Rogov. “At the end of December in Kiev, the Artem plant, which produces 152 mm [caliber] shells of the Soviet standard, was hit. This had an immediate impact - a little more than a week later, the use of artillery of this caliber in the Zaporozhye direction sharply decreased. These shells are no longer supplied from anywhere.” , - he said.
On January 2, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that the Russian Armed Forces carried out a group strike with high-precision missiles and drones on military-industrial complex facilities in Kiev and the surrounding area: the production of missiles, drones, places for repairing military equipment, storing missiles, ammunition and aircraft weapons supplied by Western countries. As the military department emphasized, the goal of the strike was achieved, all objects were hit. On December 29 last year, eyewitnesses told TASS that explosions occurred in Kiev near the Artem military plant, which produces ammunition and missiles.
According to Rogov, in 2023, Ukraine launched its own production of such shells, since a significant number that remained in the warehouses of the former Warsaw Pact countries was transferred to Kyiv after the start of the SVO. “Less than two weeks have passed since a shortage of shells began to be felt in this narrow segment. The intensity of shelling has decreased, this is due precisely to the blow to production,” the agency’s interlocutor added.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces reduced the use of artillery by 90% compared to summer levels. This was stated by correspondent Guido Schmidtke on the Welt TV channel 12 January 2024. “The frequency of Ukrainian artillery [strikes] has decreased by 90% compared to the summer due to a shortage of artillery ammunition,” Schmidtke said. He recalled that at the end of 2023, Germany transferred 20 thousand artillery shells to Ukraine, and this year it will supply another 140 thousand shells. “But if we proceed from the fact that Ukraine needs from 2 thousand to 5 thousand artillery shells every day <...>, then these [supplies] are a drop in the bucket,” the journalist explained.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky admitted on 17 November 2023 that the Ukrainian army would have to retreat if Western allies stopped providing assistance to Kyiv. According to him, the focus of Western countries is shifting due to the situation in the Middle East. Ukraine, in particular, has already begun to receive fewer 155-mm shells, Zelensky added.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said upon arriving at the EU Council meeting on 14 November 2023 that the EU should assume that the target announced in February to supply Ukraine with 1 million shells within a year will not be met. The head of the diplomatic service of the European Union, Josep Borrell, reported on November 13 that so far 300 thousand shells have been delivered to Ukraine in 2023. The goal of providing Ukraine with 1 million shells and missiles was formulated by Borrell at the end of February 2023, approved by EU countries and positioned as a means of supporting the spring offensive of the Ukrainian military.
Parliamentary testimony given to the legislature’s defense committee by UK Chief of the Defense Staff Tony Radakin on 04 July 2023 noted: “Russia has lost nearly half the combat effectiveness of its army... Last year it fired 10 million artillery shells but at best can produce 1 million shells a year."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that deliveries of key artillery shells to his country had dropped off after Israeli war on Gaza erupted 07 October 2023. Israel, which receives US military support, had relentlessly pounded Gaza since Hamas fighters launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel. "Our deliveries have decreased," Zelenskyy told reporters, referring specifically to 155-millimetre shells that are widely used on the eastern and southern frontlines in Ukraine, saying "they really slowed down". "It's not like the US said: we don't give Ukraine any. No! It's just that everyone is fighting for (stockpiles) themselves," he told reporters. "This is life. I'm not saying that this is positive, but this is life, and we have to defend what's ours."
The European Union will most likely not be able to fulfill its obligations to supply 1 million artillery ammunition to Kyiv. Bloomberg reported 10 November 2023, citing sources. the European External Action Service informed diplomats of the community countries that the EU “probably will not be able to achieve the target” for the supply of the specified number of shells by March 2024. Bloomberg emphasizes that after half the scheduled period, the community transferred only about 30% of all promised shells to Ukraine.
As the agency notes, supplying the former Soviet republic with ammunition is becoming an increasingly pressing issue as Russia increases its own production. Now any shortage of military supplies from Europe “risks becoming critical” for Ukraine. The transfer of military aid to Kyiv is slowing down amid the approaching presidential elections in the United States and the ambiguous position of EU states, Bloomberg points out.
Earlier, the head of the European Union's foreign policy service, Josep Borrell, said that in order to continue hostilities in Ukraine, the community has handed over 300 thousand 155 mm shells and 2.6 thousand missiles to Kyiv since the beginning of this year alone. He assured that the EU will increase the production of ammunition for Ukraine. In February, the head of European diplomacy promised that Brussels would send 1 million shells to Kyiv. For this purpose, €2 billion has been allocated from the European Peace Fund.
The European Defense Agency signed nine framework contracts with the European defense industry for the purchase of 155-mm ammunition for Ukraine. The Freedom correspondent was informed about this 30 October 2023 by the press service of the European Commission. They also told how the obligations to deliver 1 million shells to Ukraine by the end of this year are being fulfilled.
“When it comes to the state of play of the three track approach agreed by Member States in March this year, up to 31 May, Member States delivered around 223,000 artillery ammunition (long-range self-propelled, precision-guided ammunitions as well as mortar ammunitions) and 2,300 missiles of all types. That was the deadline that Member States had to be eligible for reimbursement under the first track of the ammunition initiative. After that date, Member States have continued to deliver ammunition, which is eligible for reimbursement under the EPF,” the EU Spokeperson stated.
The European Commission emphasized that negotiations are continuing on other types of artillery ammunition and missiles. In parallel, other EU member states (for example, Germany and France) implement national procurement schemes. “The one million round ammunition target remains an important political goal. The Conclusions of the European Council held last week highlight the need to accelerate the delivery of military support to Ukraine to help meet its pressing military and defence needs, including missiles and ammunition. Member States will have the opportunity to discuss the EU’s military support to Ukraine at the next Foreign Affairs Council (Defence) on 14 November,” the EU Spokeperson noted.
On 20 March 2023, at a meeting of the European Council, a three-track approach was agreed to speed up deliveries and joint purchases to provide Ukraine with one million units of artillery ammunition during the next twelve months.
According to the first track, the council called on the member states to urgently deliver artillery ammunition to Ukraine and, if necessary, missiles from the existing stockpiles by May 31 on the condition of their compensation. On track two, the Council called on the member states to jointly purchase 155-mm ammunition and, if necessary, missiles for Ukraine as soon as possible by September 30, 2023. Track three was supposed to support the expansion of production capacities of the European defense industry.
On 26 October 2023, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the EU of Lithuania, Gabrielus Landsbergis, wrote on his page in X that "The EU promised Ukraine 1,000,000 artillery rounds. So far, we have delivered only 300,000. Meanwhile, North Korea delivered 350,000 to Russia. We surely have the resources to outperform North Korea. We should stop being frozen in the headlights while brave Ukrainians die."
The West could produce about 30,000 artillery shells a month, and Ukraine typically fired 6,000 a day. Ukraine found itself in a dual situation. On the one hand, it inherited significant stocks of Soviet weapons and ammunition from the USSR, and on the other hand, it repeatedly announced the transition to NATO Alliance standards. Soviet ammunition is different from NATO. For example, the heavy artillery of the NATO member states uses a caliber of 155 mm, and the Soviet one (which was at the disposal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine) - 152 mm. In other words, Soviet ammunition is not suitable for Western weapons. Ukraine does not yet have a full cycle of production of its own ammunition, either NATO or Soviet.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said 03 May 2023 a decision by the European Union to allocate hundreds of millions of euros for the purchase and production of ammunition and missiles for Ukraine is a step that Kyiv has been waiting for. Ambassadors from EU countries on May 3 agreed details of a 1 billion euro ($1.1 billion) scheme to jointly buy ammunition for Ukraine after weeks of wrangling that had frustrated leaders in Kyiv.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said 25 March 2023 in an interview with the Japanese publication Yomiuri Shimbun that the spring counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is being postponed because Ukraine lacked weapons and ammunition. According to the Ukrainian leader, the offensive was planned for the spring, but now the Armed Forces of Ukraine lack, in particular, ammunition and fighter jets. The situation with ammunition in the Armed Forces of Ukraine was very difficult, the President of Ukraine noted. According to him, the Russian military daily fires about three times more ammunition than the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and "we are waiting for ammunition from our partner countries." He again urged the US and Europe to expedite the supply of ammunition..." Ukraine needs ammunition from the already existing stocks of Western armies, because the production of new shells will take a long time. Ukrainian troops need up to 600,000 shells per month to successfully liberate the entire territory of the country, while in reality only 120,000 are available to them, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense told European partners.
Since the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine inherited a large surplus of weapons and ammunition manufactured during the USSR, in addition, with the disappearance of one of the world's empires, the world's need for weapons has sharply decreased. This led to the simultaneous shutdown of almost all Ukrainian enterprises of the defense complex, and weak management led to a sharp degradation of this sector of the economy.
A large number of unusable ammunition and technically obsolete weapons have remained in Ukraine since the Second World War, and this can pose a danger not only to Ukraine, but also far beyond its borders. "The ammunition itself is unlikely to pass across the border, but it poses a threat of man-made disaster, because many arsenals and warehouses are located next to very important industrial facilities, including nuclear plants," noted Vasyl Lytvynchuk, project manager of the NATO Agency for Material - technical support and supply in Ukraine (NSPA).
For many years, Ukraine was a parasite on Soviet stocks, sales of weapons from foreign warehouses made up a significant part of the country's budget. At the same time, due to the drop in demand for weapons, Western arms manufacturers also experienced great difficulties, for example, the income of the European manufacturer Oerlikon fell from 3 billion to 600 million. Western manufacturers considered Ukraine as a potential country for out-sourcing production and reducing labor costs. At that time, the culture of military production in Ukraine had not yet been lost and there was a large reserve of specialists from the times of the USSR.
"Ukraine entered 1991 with huge reserves of equipment and ammunition for numerous artillery on its territory. However, during the 30 years of independence, most of these munitions were either sold abroad or disposed of as unusable. We should also not forget about Russian sabotage in 2014-2018, as a result of which Ukraine lost several large ammunition warehouses, in which a large number of shells were stored," expert Anton Korzhc oncluded.
Launched in 2006 and successfully completed in early 2012, the first phase of the Trust Fund project saw the destruction of 15,000 tonnes of ammunition, 400,000 small arms and light weapons (SALW) and 1,000 man-portable anti-aircraft missile systems (MANPADS). The contribution of the Trust Fund to this stage of the project was EUR 10.8 million.
At the beginning of the 2000s, there were 2.5 million tons of ammunition in Ukraine. Most of them were to be disposed of by the beginning of 2015. Novobogdanivka, Svatovo, Balaklia and the war - one way or another, shells were destroyed. Only the military knows how much ammunition disappeared and how much remains. Much of this ammunition has expired. This was announced back in 2004 during the liquidation of the consequences of the explosion of the arsenal in Novobogdanivka (Zaporozhye region). Then it was said that about 1.5 million tons of shells and missiles were to be disposed of. Obviously, this was due to the fact that in the pre-war years, due to insufficient funding, almost no maintenance and repair of almost the entire range of available ammunition was carried out in Ukraine.
Regular explosions at artillery depots also depleted Soviet supplies. For example, explosions in Balakleya and Kalinovka in 2017 and in Ichna in 2018 appear to have affected ground-based artillery rounds ranging in caliber from 100 mm to 152 mm. All this forced the troops to use ammunition more economically during the fighting. The army even began to experience a shortage of ammunition for all types of artillery, including rockets. According to experts, if the intensity of fighting in Donbas again reached the level of summer 2014 or winter 2015 and continues for several months, then the Ukrainian army would not have enough artillery or tank shells.
At the same time, during the years of independence, Ukraine did not produce a single projectile. Even the Minister of Defense does not hide that the army really has a shortage of ammunition. They are no longer produced in Ukraine. And the only ammunition factory located in Luhansk is now under the control of militants. "Today there are a lot of bottlenecks, which primarily concern large calibers, which we need to close quickly enough. The combat capability of our country depends on this," the Secretary of the National Security Council Oleksandr Turchynov noted April 3, 2017.
Analysts of the Razumkov Center for Political and Economic Research tried to calculate the Soviet legacy back in 2005. At that time, 37 large military caches were discovered in Ukraine. Two and a half million tons of ammunition were found in army caches. The newest of them dated back to 1990. According to the calculations of the center's experts, by 2015 one and a half million tons of ammunition had to be disposed of, because their technical service life was ending.
The state concern "Ukroboronprom" should be engaged in launching the production of domestic ammunition. The conflict in the east of Ukraine has been going on for three years, and achievements in this direction look like plans and numbers on paper. By 2017, there were not even approximate dates when they can be implemented.
In Ukraine there was a problem with the production of gunpowder and propellant charges. This happened because in the pre-war years, the Shostka gunpowder factory "Zirka", which previously provided the armies of the states of the entire socialist camp with artillery projectiles, fell into decay. In 2019, there was talk of resuming the production of gunpowder at Zirka, even if only on the basis of imported raw materials.
In 2019, the state holding company "Artem", which is part of the state concern "Ukroboronprom", mastered the production of a 152-mm artillery shell. In the same year, serial production of the 300-mm Vilkha guided missile was launched for the missile systems of the same name developed at the Luch design bureau in Kiev; work was completed on the modernization of the 122-mm Grad multiple launch rocket systems as part of the Verba project. The production of explosives was prepared to be ensured by the cooperation of enterprises created on the basis of the NPO Pavlograd Chemical Plant.
At the end of 2019, Ukroboronprom reported that the Shostka state-owned plant "Impulse" launched a production complex for the manufacture of all the necessary parts for initiating artillery shells and missiles. With the opening of these facilities, "Impulse" set up a full cycle of production of artillery ammunition and missiles, capable of meeting the needs of the Ministry of Defense.
Ukraine turned to the European Union with a request to supply it with about 250,000 artillery shells per month to achieve success on the battlefield. This was reported on 03 March 2023 by the British newspaper Financial Times , citing a letter from Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov to European colleagues.
According to him, on average, Ukraine uses about 110,000 155-mm shells per month, which is 25% of the number of shells used by the Russian side. “If we were not limited by the number of artillery shells available, we could use the full ammunition load - 594 thousand shells per month,” Reznikov wrote. “According to our estimates, for the successful completion of combat missions, the minimum requirement is at least 60% of ammunition, or 356.4 thousand shells per month."
In this regard, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, in an interview with the newspaper, said that the European defense industry must move to a "wartime economy" in order to "satisfy the needs of defense production." According to the publication, the issue of financing the increase in the production of weapons and military equipment can be discussed by the leaders of the EU countries at a summit in Brussels on March 23-24.
The EU countries finalized a deal worth €2 billion to jointly replenish ammunition for their armed forces and the army of Ukraine. European leaders reached an agreement on this issue at a meeting of EU foreign and defense ministers on March 20 and finally approve the deal at the summit in Brussels, held on 23-24 March 2023.
But the EU is not able to promptly fulfill orders for Ukraine due to meager supplies of gunpowder, plastic explosives and TNT. The military conflict in Ukraine exposed Europe's inadequate arms stockpiles and weak domestic manufacturing capacity, depleted by decades of underinvestment. According to European officials, the main problem is that the defense industries of the EU countries are not in the best shape for large-scale military production.
European arms manufacturers warn that an increase in demand for ammunition can only lead to higher prices, which have risen by 20% in 2022, but not to an increase in production volumes. According to the Financial Times on 19 March 2023, most of the factories that manufacture ammunition and components for them are already operating at full capacity. The increase in production will take at least three years.
By May 2022, three types of 155-mm artillery were already working successfully on the front lines: M777 howitzers, FH70 howitzers and CAESAR SPHs. Self-propelled howitzers arrived in Ukraine as a result of cooperation between several countries that support Ukraine in the fight against Russian aggression.
NATO must "ramp up production" of ammunition to meet Ukraine's needs on the battlefield which are currently draining stockpiles, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said 14 February 2023. "The war in Ukraine is consuming an enormous amount of munitions, and depleting allied stockpiles," Stoltenberg told journalists. "The current rate of Ukraine's ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production. This puts our defence industries under strain."
Stoltenberg admitted that NATO was facing a "problem" as current waiting times for large-calibre ammunition have grown from 12 to 28 months. But he insisted he was confident steps taken so far meant NATO members were "on the path that will enable us both to continue to support Ukraine, but also to replenish our own stocks".
It was decided to overcome the shell hunger of the defence forces by switching to the NATO 155-mm calibre. In May 2022, it was decided that the United States, Canada, and Australia would jointly supply 100 M777 howitzers. It was these guns that defeated the Russian troops at the crossing near Bilohorivka, where the enemy lost about 100 units of armoured vehicles. From May to June 2022, the United States provided 36 M777 howitzers more.
Increasing production capacity was of the utmost importance, agreed Nico Lange, a military expert from the Munich Security Conference and former chief of staff at the German Defense Ministry. "From my point of view, [the ammunition shortage] is more important than any symbolic discussion," he told DW 15 February 2023, explaining that this was related to Russia's military strategy. Russia's attack tactic — "frontal attacks on the front line in many sections — can only be successful if Ukraine runs out of ammunition," he argued, adding that this should be avoided at all costs with Western support.
Frank Sauer, a security expert at Universität der Bundeswehr München (University of the Bundeswehr in Munich), argued 15 February 2023 that Germany and the West should have reacted much earlier. "Figures probably started circulating towards the end of summer, there was talk of five- to six-digit figures for artillery ammunition per month," he said. That was when Germany should have switched gears and realized it was time to take urgent action, Sauer said, adding that he was not sure why those in charge had not reacted at the time. He said that production had started rather late in the US too.
Ammunition resupply had been a concern for Ukrainian and Russian forces alike for months. Ukrainian commanders said they were having to make "very tough choices" about ammunition usage. Ukraine and its allies were scrambling around the world — looking as far afield as Pakistan and South Korea for artillery munitions.
A Ukrainian official said 11 June 2022 their army was running out of ammunition in its battles with Russian forces. In the Mykolaiv region near the frontline in the south of the country, the regional governor called for urgent international military assistance. “Russia's army is more powerful, they have a lot of artillery and ammo. For now, this is a war of artillery... and we are out of ammo,” Vitaliy Kim said. “The help of Europe and America is very, very important.”
Dmytro Kuleba confirmed that at the beginning of hostilities there was a danger that the Ukrainian army might run out of ammunition by the end of April, and he, on the instructions of President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, went to Bulgaria for negotiations to agree on supplies. In June 2022, the head of the Bulgarian state defense export company Kintex, Oleksandr Mykhaylov, said that Bulgaria had supplied Ukraine with ammunition worth about two billion euros. Officially, supplies were carried out by intermediary countries.
Ukraine’s battle against Russia consumed ammunition at unprecedented rates, with the country firing more than 5,000 artillery rounds every day — equal to a smaller European country’s orders in an entire year in peacetime - thoug possibly a tenth that fired by Russia in the early months of the war. The huge shift to a war footing created a supply chain crisis in Europe as defence manufacturers struggle to ramp up production to replenish national stockpiles as well as maintain supplies to Ukraine.
By early 2023 the US had already transferred just over 1 million 155mm standard artillery shells to Ukraine, but its current production capacity to make more was capped at 93,000 rounds a year. Even if production surged and the production capacity raised to 240,000 a year, there would still be a 750,000 deficit given the rates of fire in the 11 months the war has been running so far. DoD said it could get that up to 20,000 rounds a month in the spring of 2023 and 40,000 by 2025. Ammunition, rounds and more ammunition. This is what Ukraine needs most, said Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. “This also turned out to be rather challenging, the Achilles’ heel of the entire Western world, and that is why we are forcing the production of ammunition in all countries, including Poland.”
Ukraine could face a shortage of ammunition in the second half of 2023 unless the West invests in new production, as stocks are already running low and the existing production can’t keep up with the rate of fire as the fighting becomes a grinding war of attrition, the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) warned in a January 2023 study.
Ukraine established the production of 152-millimeter and 122-millimeter projectiles on an industrial scale. Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said this on the air of an information telethon 13 December 2022. What Ukrainian arms manufacturers are doing "will cause trouble to the fascists who invaded our land," he assured. "I can say with pleasure that we have established the production of both 152 mm and 122 mm caliber at our enterprises. I can say that the production of mines and many other things that are already produced by our enterprises of the defense complex will now begin. We are talking about thousands - this is already on an industrial scale," Danilo noted.
"Ukroboronprom" began to produce 125-mm shells for a tank gun. It is noted 14 March 2023 that 125-mm shells are already the second ammunition, the production of which began in close partnership with a NATO country abroad. By order of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the first batch of 125-mm shells for T-64, T-72 and T-80 tanks had already been delivered. Ukroboronprom notes that for the first time since independence, Ukraine has launched its own production of ammunition: 82 mm and 120 mm mortar mines, 122 mm and 152 mm artillery shells, and now a 125 mm tank shell. For security reasons, production had been moved outside the country, but Ukrainian designers, technologists, turners, and casters are involved in the creation of ammunition.
Ukraine consumed Western-supplied artillery shells about twice as fast as the United States and its allies produce them. This is reported by The Wall Street Journal. According to the newspaper, this could lead to a critical depletion of stocks by the summer or autumn of this year. In this regard, the armed forces of Ukraine are recommended to use shells more economically. British Defense Minister Ben Wallace made a corresponding statement.
“The Russian or Soviet way of fighting is to use very heavy ammunition with massive artillery shelling. We in the West and in NATO never fight in this way ... We train them to fight according to the Western model, ”he said then. Washington also announced its intention to train the Armed Forces of Ukraine to use artillery ammunition with less intensity, the Politico newspaper noted. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that for this, the Ukrainian military needed to better master maneuvering.
Hopes for a Armed Forces of Ukraine counteroffensive are shattered by “shell hunger” and a shortage of professional personnel, The Washington Post wrote 13 March 2023. Colossal losses are forcing Kyiv to throw unprepared recruits into the heat of battle. Statements by the Ukrainian leadership about success in the conflict with Russia are increasingly at odds with the pessimistic mood of soldiers at the front.
“Some in the Pentagon think that they are burning up ammunition too fast,” retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army Forces Europe said 15 March 2023. “Excuse me, they’re in a massive fight for the survival of their country against an enemy that has huge advantages in artillery ammunition and is not letting up.”
The largest ammunition depot in Europe, preserved from the time of the USSR, is located in the village of Kolbasna some two kilometers from the Ukrainian border. The Ukrainian army suffered an acute lack of ammunition and Western arsenals were almost empty. The production of new armaments will take a lot of time. In such a situation, Ukrainian analysts say, the AFU would be able to hold out for another year if it could get its hands on the munitions and weaponry stored in the warehouses of Kolbasna.
During Soviet times, the strategic reserves of the Western Military District were stored here. However, most of the ammunition was brought to the warehouse after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the countries of the former Warsaw Pact - such as East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
The warehouse contains artillery shells and air bombs, mines of various calibers, grenades, and cartridges. Presumably almost half of this arsenal has already exhausted its shelf life. In addition, there is a large amount of old equipment in the Kolbasna warehouse including about 100 tanks, 200 armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, more than 30,000 military vehicles, about 200 anti-aircraft missile systems, Grad multiple launch rocket systems, and 30,000 machine guns.
Pakistan sent Ukraine 10,000 shells for use in Grad multiple launch rocket systems, the Indian Economic Times reported 12 February 2023, citing sources. According to the newspaper, the shells "were sent from the port of Karachi earlier this month and will arrive in Ukraine through the port of Emden in Germany." According to an unnamed source of the publication, despite the fact that Pakistan asked Russia to lower oil prices, the country "regularly" supplies weapons to Ukraine. Pakistani factories are also said to have sent 50,000 rounds ammunition to Ukraine via Karachi in January 2023.
Politico informed that the United States intends to focus on training Ukrainian military personnel in order to change the tactics of combat operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and thereby reduce the consumption of artillery ammunition by Kiev.
The United States in 2022 reached an agreement with Israel on the supply of 155-mm artillery ammunition to Ukraine from American warehouses located on the territory of the Jewish state. This was reported on 17 January 2023 by The New York Times, citing sources from among American and Israeli officials. According to them, the deal provides for the supply of 300,000 artillery shells to Ukraine, about half of which had already been shipped to Europe and were expected to be delivered to Ukraine via Poland. Deliveries were made from American warehouses established in Israel after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war for use by the US military in conflicts in the Middle East.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on 13 February 2023 that the transatlantic military alliance would be increasing its targets for ammunition stockpiles, amid rapid depletion of its inventory in the war in Ukraine. "The war in Ukraine is consuming an enormous amount of ammunition," Stoltenberg said. "The current rate of Ukraine's ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current production rates. This puts our defense industries under strain. (...) So we need to ramp up new production and invest in our production capacities." Stoltenberg also said NATO members would "step up and sustain" support for Ukraine, saying: "NATO stands with Ukraine for as long as it takes."
On 14 February 2023, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced the signing of contracts with the defense industry for the production of ammunition for Gepard in Germany for subsequent delivery to Ukraine. Earlier, the Swiss government did not allow Germany to re-export Gepard ZSU ammunition to Ukraine.
The US Army is going to order almost $1 billion worth of 155 mm heavy artillery howitzer ammunition, the Defense Department announced. "General Dynamics-Ordnance & Tactical Systems [of] Niceville, Florida and American Ordnance [of] Middletown, Iowa will compete for each order of the $993,790,373 ... contract to produce 155mm rounds," the Defense Department said on 15 February 2023. The two bids from GD-OTS and American ordnance were the only ones received by the Army. Work on fulfilling the full order will be carried out over the next five years with an estimated completion date of 14 February 2028.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine must learn to use ammunition more economically, as the armies of NATO countries do. This opinion was expressed on 15 February by British Defense Minister Ben Wallace in an interview with Times Radio. “The Russian or Soviet way of fighting is to [use] very heavy ammunition with massive artillery fire. We in the West and in NATO never fight in this way. Ukraine uses a huge amount of ammunition to protect itself. Partly because of this, we train their conduct of combat according to the Western model," he said.
According to The Daily Telegraph newspaper, the Armed Forces of Ukraine fire about 6,000 artillery rounds a day, which exceeds the West's ability to satisfy the "shell hunger" emerging in Kiev. Bastian Giegerich, an expert at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that European countries can produce about 300,000 heavy artillery shells of 155 mm caliber per year. At the same time, he expressed the opinion that the production capacity of the Old World can increase these figures by 50% in a "relatively short timeframe."
Ukraine could have already been defeated in the conflict, if not for the supply of 155 mm artillery from NATO countries. This opinion was expressed on 20 February 2023 by the newspaper El País. Kyiv was experiencing a shortage of ammunition. 60% of its arsenal is 122mm and 152mm Soviet artillery, ammunition for which is no longer produced in large quantities in Ukraine or Eastern Europe. In addition, we are talking about weapons that are many years old, so they can pose a danger to the military who use them. Another 30% of the arsenal falls on 155-mm artillery - about 350 units.
The United States was reviewing its weapons stockpiles and may have to increase military spending after seeing the high rate at which ammunition has been used in the Ukraine conflict, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told media 16 February 2023. "One of the lessons of this war is the very high consumption rates of conventional munitions, and we are re-examining our own stockages and our own plans to make sure that we got it right," Milley said in an interview. Ammunition is "very expensive," the top general noted. "We’re trying to do the analysis so that we can then estimate what we think the true requirement would be. And then we have to put that in the budget," he added.
Approximately half of the countries of the European Union support the proposal for joint purchases of ammunition for Ukraine. This was announced on 18 February 2023 at a briefing by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. "Although at the last EU summit only a few countries were in favor of making joint purchases of ammunition and joint production, investing in production, now more and more countries agree with this," he said. "How many countries agree today? Approximately I can say that today it is already half of the EU countries," Morawiecki said. Earlier, Estonia made a proposal to start joint purchases of military equipment for Ukraine, by analogy with vaccines against COVID-19. As the head of the European Council, Charles Michel, pointed out, the participants in the last EU summit were not prepared for such discussions.
Berlin called on countries that have ammunition for Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns to provide them to Kyiv until Germany establishes its own production. This was stated on 18 February 2023 by German Foreign Minister Annalena Burbock at the Munich Security Conference. "We didn't have that kind of stockpile of ammunition because we thought that was it - the war in Europe was over," she said. "We are now restoring the production of ammunition, for example, in Germany. We hope to fill this gap in Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns by June-July," Burbock said. "There are several countries that have stocks of such ammunition. We urge them to supply [Kyiv]," the minister added.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said on 18 February 2023 she was confident the EU's joint interest in getting more ammunition to Ukraine will trump individual national interests when it comes to common European defense procurement programs. The bloc is urgently exploring ways for member countries to team up to buy munitions to help Ukraine. "As always in this atrocious war that Russia unleashed against Ukraine, we see we can move mountains under pressure, and therefore here too," she told reporters at the Munich Security Conference.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba defended his country's call for cluster munitions, saying he realizes the ammunition is controversial but added Ukraine is not a party to the convention prohibiting them and thus could legally use them. Kuleba spoke to reporters on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on February 18. The Convention on Cluster Munitions is an international treaty prohibiting the use, transfer, production, and stockpiling of cluster bombs, a type of weapon that scatters submunitions or "bomblets" over an area. Neither Ukraine nor Russia has signed the agreement. Kuleba said Ukraine has evidence Russia is using cluster ammunition.
On 20 February 2023 the head of the German defense concern Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger, believed that ammunition for Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns to be sent to Kyiv will be ready by July. He stated this to reporters at a joint press conference with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. Papperger expected ammunition for the Gepard ZSU by July.
Air raid sirens blaring in Ukraine's capital on 20 February 2023, at the same time that U.S. President Joe Biden landed there for a surprise visit. Biden used the trip to announce $500 million in new military aid to Ukraine, including air defense radars, weapons for taking out armored vehicles, and artillery ammunition.
The European Union planned to spend at least 1.1 billion U.S. dollars on ammunition for Ukraine and refill the bloc's stockpiles. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said 09 March 2023 that the suggestion was made as Ukraine needs more supplies and faster. Such efforts will be aimed at getting countries to procure 155mmr shells, the NATO standard artillery munition while searching ways to ramp up production. Borrell proposed a three-point plan for the supply of shells to Ukraine, involving urgent dispatch of them from existing stocks of €1 billion, emergency purchases for another €1 billion, and the transfer of industry to war footing to speed up production.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov called the EU plan to allocate €1 billion for ammunition for Kiev insufficient and called for a fourfold increase in this amount. "We need a million shells, it will cost approximately €4 billion," Bloomberg quoted Reznikov as saying. "We need more," Ukrainian Defense Minister said, commenting on the proposal of EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. On 20 March 2023, European Union ministers signed off on the plan of the head of the community's foreign policy, Josep Borrell, to supply €2 billion ($2.1 billion) from the European Peace Fund to supply Ukraine with 1 million ammunition within 12 months and doubling this amount within two years thanks to joint orders of 155 mm caliber shells by the EU countries. The bloc aimed to deliver 1 million 155-millimeter artillery shells to Ukraine in the next 12 months as well as replenish EU stocks. Under the plan, €1 billion will be used to reimburse EU members that immediately supply Ukraine with ammunition from their own existing stockpiles. Another €1 billion will be used to jointly fast track orders of ammunition specifically for Ukraine. In addition, the plan involves the militarization of European industry, including the creation of new factories for the production of ammunition and weapons. The agreement aims to accelerate deliveries, and comes amid concerns that Ukraine is using more shells than its Western allies are producing.
Germany planned to produce up to 250 thousand artillery shells of 155 mm caliber out of 1 million, which the EU countries agreed to supply to Ukraine by the end of the year. This was reported by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 28 April 2023. According to the publication, in Germany, the Rheinmetall concern will be responsible for the production of shells. At the same time, it uses for the manufacture of ammunition individual elements coming from Australia and South Africa.
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