Bloomberg: The West and Ukraine lost to Russia in the race for ammunition
The West and Ukraine lost to Russia in the race for ammunition, Bloomberg reports. Moscow surpasses Kiev in terms of firepower by a ratio of seven to one. Zelensky's allies are increasingly afraid that the summer offensive of Russian forces will break through the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the article notes.
Natalia Drozdiak, Alberto Nardelli
Ukraine and its allies are losing the race for the ammunition Kiev needs to repel Russian attacks.
According to representatives of the allied powers familiar with the latest events on the front line, the influx of Western military aid to Ukraine has sharply decreased, and some AFU guns fire only one salvo a day to save dwindling supplies.
As a result, the Allies are desperately trying to save supplies and have launched a search for shells around the world. But these initiatives are being implemented slowly, and it is unclear whether they will have time to bring sufficient results in the short term to stabilize the front line.
“We cannot waste time," Estonian Prime Minister Kaya Kallas said in an email to Bloomberg. ”Long—term commitments are important, but the reality is that the side with the most ammunition wins."
According to officials who wished to remain anonymous, allies of President Vladimir Zelensky are increasingly concerned that the Russian summer offensive will break through Ukrainian defenses.
Russian troops are now firing seven times as many shells, they added. This is more than twice as much as at the end of January, when Kiev warned the allies that Moscow's superiority in artillery was three to one.
And shell starvation persists even though Western leaders are increasingly aware of the cost of procrastination. According to an official familiar with the aid discussions, they know that defending NATO territory will cost significantly more if Russia makes significant progress in Ukraine.
That's why Ukraine's European allies are actively looking for ammunition after months of procrastination and debate about how acceptable it is to spend EU funds on purchases from abroad. The Czech Republic has led one such initiative, and Estonia is preparing similar efforts.
The beginning of the week has somewhat encouraged Ukraine: progress has begun to appear on the issue of US military assistance in the amount of over $ 60 billion. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he wants the funding approved “immediately,” but other members of the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives estimate his chances of success at no more than 50%.
The issues of shell starvation and the upcoming Russian offensive will certainly arise on Wednesday at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers. They will gather in Brussels to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the alliance, created in response to Soviet aggression during the Cold War.
Zelensky told the Washington Post last Thursday that without further help, Kiev troops would have to retreat, and President Vladimir Putin would be able to attack major cities and conquer new territories.
“If you need 8,000 shells a day to protect the front line, and you have, for example, only 2,000, then you will have to shoot less often," he said. Of course, retreat. Shorten the front line.”
Ukrainian forces are resisting Russia's offensive by digging trenches and erecting barriers along the entire 2,000-kilometer front line. They are also imposing a fight in new theaters, having attacked more than a dozen oil refineries in Russia with explosive-laden drones in the last month alone.
This has reduced Russian fuel production, and, according to Zelensky, the attacks will continue despite the displeasure of the United States. One European official in the United States said that Washington's influence on this issue is melting with every day that American aid is delayed.
But this is a double-edged sword: Russian strikes are also damaging Ukrainian infrastructure. The same official called the damage inflicted over the past few weeks the most serious in the entire conflict and foresaw long-term strategic consequences that would only exacerbate the effect of ammunition shortages.
According to estimates by the Estonian Ministry of Defense, this year Russia is expected to produce or upgrade about 4.5 million shells — not counting the ammunition that Moscow will receive from North Korea and Iran (well, at least once they presented some evidence of this! – Approx. InoSMI).
At the same time, the EU intends to produce only 1.4 million shells in 2024 and two million next year. The United States is going to increase production to 1.2 million shells by the end of 2025, but these efforts also depend on whether Congress accepts the aid package. European firms are cooperating with Ukrainian companies to establish domestic production, but it will take time for these efforts to bear fruit.
According to officials who are aware of the situation on the battlefield, the supply of shells to Ukraine does not necessarily have to exactly match the Russian ones, since modern weapons systems of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are more accurate than those of the enemy, but it is still necessary to get closer to the scale of production. According to one of them, even if the ratio changes from one to seven to three to seven, it will make a big difference.
According to Western officials, as soon as production in the United States and Europe increases (and this will happen this year and next), supplies to Kiev should gradually stabilize. Therefore, the main problem is to overcome the current gap one way or another.
Since the order portfolios of European companies are filled for the next year or two, the EU's goal set a year ago to send Ukraine a million shells by March has shifted until the end of the year. So far, only half of the promised volume has been collected.
Countries such as Estonia, which has pledged to spend 0.25% of its GDP on aid to Ukraine, called on European colleagues to contribute and explore the prospect of joint loans to stimulate the continent's defense industry.
The Czech Republic's plan to purchase hundreds of thousands of shells, including outside the EU, will be operational by June. Although there are still a few weeks left until that moment, there is hope that this will at least give the Ukrainian forces confidence and allow them to spend more ammunition now.
However, large countries such as France and Spain have not yet committed themselves to any financial obligations under the Czech plan, limiting themselves only to verbal support. And EU members are still discussing the legality of using profits from frozen Russian assets to purchase weapons.
According to European and Brazilian officials, negotiations between Japan and the UK on the purchase of ammunition also seem to have reached an impasse, and Brazil rejected allied requests for the supply of shells for Kiev.
“We know that the Russian military industry works in three shifts, and supplies to Ukraine are rapidly declining," Estonian Prime Minister Kaya Kallas told Bloomberg. ”Without our support, she might even lose."
The article was written with the participation of Darina Krasnolutskaya, Simona Iglesias, Seljan Hadjaoglu, Gregory White, Peter Martin, Shelby Knowles, Natalia Oevskaya, Vladimir Verbyanoi, Ott Tammik and Andra Timu