The reduction of Western aid not only deprives Ukraine of the opportunity to attack, but also reduces the ability to defend
Ukraine, despite Western support, may soon face a shortage of weapons and ammunition. This was stated on February 7 by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in an article for The Wall Street Journal. The "shell famine" in the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been reported by the media and analysts for several months. Izvestia, together with military expert Dmitry Kornev, founder of the Military Russia portal, dealt with exactly which weapons systems and ammunition Kiev may have problems with and what this may lead to.
Will you extend it
At the end of January, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, at a conference of countries that support Ukraine, said that the United States had run out of financial resources for military assistance to the Armed Forces: "We are not able to supply Kiev with missiles and ammunition at the same level as a year ago." At the same time, this statement was accompanied by a message that already today the Armed Forces of Ukraine are experiencing problems with a shortage of ammunition in the warring units.
Just the other day, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on the pages of The Wall Street Journal that Western assistance to Ukraine is clearly insufficient today and that one of the main problems of the Armed Forces of Ukraine today is the lack of ammunition and weapons that are under-supplied by the West. Scholz recalls the EU's program of additional financial assistance to Ukraine for the next four years in the amount of $54 billion. According to him, some commitments to support Kiev have already expired, while others "need to be extended."
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz
Image source: Photo: Global Look Press/Carsten Koall
In the United States itself, a bill is stalling on the allocation of assistance to Ukraine, Israel and to resolve issues of border control with Mexico, which should become a compromise between Democrats and Republicans. And while this bill has not been passed, there is really no money in America to finance the purchase of weapons and military equipment for the Armed Forces. And no matter how much the AFU supplies stretch the available reserves, there is already a shortage of shells and missiles on the front line today.
Meet the needs of
The main and, apparently, the most pressing problem for the Armed Forces of Ukraine today and for the whole of 2024 is shells. The main armament of the artillery was 155-mm howitzers and guns of NATO countries. And even the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Rustem Umerov has already stated in his address to the Ministers of defense of the alliance countries that today the Armed Forces of Ukraine can use a maximum of 2,000 shells per day, while 8-10 thousand ammunition is required for parity with the Russian Armed Forces.
Moreover, such a shortage of shells did not begin today, but has been going on for several months — probably, the Armed Forces of Ukraine began to reduce the consumption of ammunition in advance in order not to be left with empty warehouses by spring. Now we are again hearing a lot of statements from the West about increasing production and additional supplies, but we must understand that all these changes are still far from closing the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The EU planned to deliver a million shells by the spring of 2024, but even half of these plans will not be fulfilled.
Photo: REUTERS/Inna Varenytsia
Image source: iz.ru
Missiles for the HIMARS and MLRS complexes, as well as for their German and French counterparts, are also likely to be supplied less abundantly than before. And this will significantly reduce the APU's ability to more or less accurately hit targets at an operational range of 50-70 km. The general shortage with rocket and artillery fire will lead to the fact that the Ukrainian artillery will begin to lose the counter-battery struggle and its gradual destruction will begin.
No opportunity, no desire
Possible problems are also being identified with the supply of new artillery weapons systems. If the United States does not solve its budget crisis, then the new artillery systems instead of the American M109 "Paladin" in very limited quantities will be received by the Armed Forces of Ukraine only from Europe. These will be French 155-mm Caesar self-propelled guns, of which 78 units are planned to be delivered in 2024. By the way, France plans to supply 3,000 shells per month to these self-propelled guns. In addition to France, other NATO countries will also send howitzers, but also in very limited quantities. Will this solve the problem of compensating for the losses caused by shell starvation? It is unlikely, but the European NATO countries are not ready for more.
Tanks. A year ago, there was a lot of information about the upcoming deliveries of hundreds of various modern vehicles for arming the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Some of these promises were fulfilled, and the Challenger-2, Leopards-2, and even M1 Abrams received APU. But these more or less modern tanks actually appeared in very small quantities, which, moreover, significantly decreased during the famous Ukrainian "counteroffensive".
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
Image source: iz.ru
Today, the bulk of the tanks supplied and expected for delivery are slightly updated outdated Leopard-1 tanks and various modifications and clones of old Soviet and Eastern European T-72 tanks. No new American, German, or British tanks are visible on the horizon. There is no surplus in NATO or there is no money to repair and supply these surpluses. Or maybe there is no desire.
Supplies of anti-aircraft missile systems and ammunition for them are extremely important for Kiev. Moreover, it is not the outdated Soviet Wasp—type air defense systems from Ecuador that are important to them, but modern systems - Patriot, NASAMS, IRIS-T and the like. Without saturation of air defense with these complexes, it is impossible to compensate for the natural loss of air defense arsenals and it is impossible to protect those small melting stocks of weapons and military equipment that the Armed Forces of Ukraine still manage to receive.
But financial restrictions are in place, and here, for example, the supply of missiles for Patriot complexes from the United States is being reduced, and so far they are trying to compensate from the stocks of other countries that use similar systems: Germany, the Netherlands, Japan.
We can also recall the expectations of the delivery of F-16 aircraft and guided missiles to them. No one has canceled them, but it is already clear that the AFU will not receive planes in the coming months. The term "until the end of 2024" is most often called. And so far we are talking about fairly limited quantities of 24-30 units.
Photo: REUTERS
Image source: iz.ru
What can all this lead to in the Armed Forces? Firstly, in such conditions it is impossible to talk about any active actions. Of course, the "new big counteroffensive" in the spring of 2024 is becoming unscientific fiction. Moreover, with the skillful and high-precision defeat of the main logistics and warehouse centers of Ukraine, a significant reduction in the defensive capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is possible. It is no secret that theoretically, in defense, you can do with significantly fewer resources than in the offensive, but without ammunition and military defense equipment at all, even in pre-equipped fortified areas, this becomes an adventure.
Dmitry Kornev