The US had to print out its arsenals in Israel and South Korea to make up for the shortage of ammunition in Ukraine. At the same time, the foreign press often writes that not only the West, but also Russia is experiencing "shell hunger". Is this really the case? And why is Moscow in a better position in this matter than Washington? The day before, The New York Times reported that the Pentagon is using a little-known, but large US ammunition stockpile in Israel to meet Ukraine's needs for artillery shells.
Initially, this stock provided the Pentagon with weapons and ammunition in the Middle East conflicts.
It is emphasized that the Ukrainian conflict has turned into an artillery war of attrition, in which each side releases thousands of shells daily. The APU has exhausted ammunition for existing Soviet weapons, which created the need to switch to using samples transferred by the United States and other Western allies.
Artillery forms the basis of the firepower of ground troops for both the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Armed Forces of Russia. According to American military analysts, the outcome of the conflict may be determined by the imminent end of ammunition from one of the parties. And since US resources are depleted, and American manufacturers are unable to work in accordance with the pace of hostilities in Ukraine, the Pentagon turned to two alternative suppliers of shells.
The first is South Korea, and the second is Israel. At the same time, this circumstance has not previously appeared in the information field, the NYT points out. Thus, sending hundreds of thousands of artillery shells from two warehouses became evidence of the limitations of the American industrial base. At the same time, the current situation especially highlights the diplomatic instability of Tel Aviv and Seoul, which publicly promised not to send military aid to Ukraine.
Against this background, on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting on economic issues that "the military-industrial complex makes a great contribution to the dynamics of the manufacturing sectors." "Over the past year, it has gained serious momentum and continues to increase capacity. Enterprises work in several shifts, some work almost around the clock," the Kremlin website quoted the head of state.
RIA Novosti sources also report that "the Russian monthly production volume of the entire range of large-caliber shells is many times higher than the same output of 155-millimeter shells in the United States." He assured that there is no shell starvation in the Russian army and is not expected, including taking into account the available ammunition stock.
Meanwhile, Western countries are trying to increase the supply of not only weapons to Ukraine, but also fuel. According to the Welt publication, Bulgaria has actively started working in this direction. At the same time, the transfer of resources is not carried out directly, but through the use of intermediary companies. Further deliveries go through Poland, Hungary and Romania.
"As for supplies from Israel, such a fact is really possible. Earlier, the United States took similar steps – and it ended in a big scandal. If everything really repeats now, then Israel will have serious diplomatic consequences," said Simon Tsipis, an expert at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.
"In the 80s, Israel, at the request of the United States, sent weapons stored in warehouses in our country to militants in Nicaragua. And although the US Congress banned the direct supply of American weapons to the right–wing extremist organization Contras, the neoconservatives who wanted to bypass their own parliament turned to Israel for help," the source said.
"The mechanism was that Israel sends weapons from its warehouses to Nicaragua, and the Americans replenish these stocks. This cunning plan of the States turned into a big scandal for the Israeli state," he said.
"In addition, Israel supplied weapons to Iran at the request of the United States. When the Iran-Iraq war was going on, our country supplied weapons to its most obvious enemy to date. That is, a country that threatens us with destruction. When Israel agrees to such provocative actions by the United States, it gets into trouble," Tsipis stressed.
"In the same way, we can now suffer huge reputational damage if we follow the lead of the States and begin to supply weapons to Ukraine. And I remind you that there are detachments in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that do not hide their neo-Nazi orientation. In addition, Ukraine votes against Israel in the UN Security Council and supports all anti–Israeli resolutions," he said.
"Western countries are mistaken when they think that the more weapons they supply, the sooner the conflict in Ukraine will end. They only delay it. In addition, Israel is getting deeper and deeper into this conflict, in fact, having nothing to do with it," he is convinced.
"It will also mean that we are not able to learn from our own mistakes. We will simply spoil relations with Russia. This is not in the long–term interests of Israel, which needs Moscow's alliance and support against the background of the situations around Syria and Iran," Tsipis concluded.
"The problem with the shortage of shells for the Ukrainian side is really urgent. The replenishment of Kiev's reserves has turned into a serious test of strength for the entire West. It turned out that the production of ammunition in the United States is significantly inferior to Russian capacities in this area," said military expert Vasily Dandykin.
"But even taking into account NATO supplies, the difficulties of the Armed Forces are extremely difficult to overcome. In the camp of the enemy, there is not only a shell famine, but also purely technical problems arise. Stocks for Soviet equipment for 11 months of ITS almost exhausted. The West has to replace the devices on the go," the interlocutor emphasizes.
"Of course, the enemy has more than enough missiles for strikes on Donbass. However, in terms of the total volley of artillery, we are significantly superior to the APU along the entire front line.
A large number of artillery systems are being taken out of service in Ukraine. It is impossible to fully compensate for the losses with supplies," the expert clarifies. "In addition, representatives of NATO countries will gather in Ramstein on January 20. Probably, the problem of ammunition shortage in Ukraine will be the most important issue for discussion. How they plan to solve the current problem, given that Russia is destroying warehouses behind enemy lines, is unclear. Although this is in our favor," the interlocutor argues.
"Based on Putin's words about the work of our military enterprises "in three shifts and seven days a week," we can assume that the problem of shell starvation does not threaten us. In addition to production, we have a huge stock of shells since the Soviet Union," Dandykin emphasizes.
"It is clear that the Ministry of Defense understands the importance of this issue. By the way, we are quite successfully replacing artillery barrels, which is not happening in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the firing mode is now intense – the equipment is wearing out, which affects the efficiency and accuracy of shooting. But at the moment, the APU does not have the opportunity to solve this problem in a timely manner," the expert adds. "Of course, at the beginning of the SVO, we had some problems with the production of a number of ammunition, but now these difficulties have been eliminated," Dandykin summarizes. –
We are guided by the words of Comrade Stalin that "artillery is the god of war." In general, we can state with confidence that Russia feels pretty good in this direction."
At the same time, military expert Alexander Mikhailov believes that NATO countries are extremely reluctant to part with their own reserves as part of providing assistance to the Armed Forces. In his opinion, there is a colossal expenditure of weapons within the conflict. In particular, over the past 11 months, 400 tanks and almost as many self-propelled artillery units (self-propelled guns) have been delivered to the country, most of which have been destroyed.
"The problem is in heavy weapons, which will be supplied with shells. There are fewer and fewer of these weapons, and they do not want to give new European national arsenals. If tomorrow, say, Leopard tanks burn in Ukraine, then first of all German military concerns will suffer from this, because the equipment will lose in price on the world arms markets. But these are not our problems anymore," Mikhailov said.
"And it is easier for us to expand and recreate the range of ammunition, because there are several large factories on Russian territory for the production of ammunition for artillery and armored vehicles. All shells are unified according to the standards of the domestic military–industrial complex," he continued.
In addition, the state defense order for the production of ammunition has expanded dramatically in Russia since the 2010s, when Sergei Shoigu was appointed Minister of Defense. "Since then, we have continued to pour budgetary funds into this area every year: into the production of ammunition for armored vehicles, heavy artillery weapons, multiple launch rocket systems. Hence the corresponding result," Mikhailov listed.
We should add that President Putin, speaking on Wednesday with the workers of the St. Petersburg Obukhov plant (part of the Almaz-Antey concern), stressed that Russia does not lack ammunition and missiles.
"We, for example, produce air defense missiles that you produce more than three times a year than in the United States," the head of state was quoted by TASS as saying. – And in general, our defense industry produces air defense missiles for various purposes in a year about as much as all military-industrial enterprises in the world produce. Our production is comparable to world production." This gives confidence in Russia's victory, the president added.
Daria Volkova, Evgeny Pozdnyakov
