On a typical day along the 1,000-kilometer front, the Russian army fires about 10,000 artillery shells, while the Ukrainian armed forces respond with 2,000, according to estimates by Western military institutes. The Ukrainian fire figure is endorsed by its Minister of Defense, Rustem Umérov. In some sections, the ratio is even worse.
The shortage of medium-range ammunition – the most necessary in the current situation – is gripping Ukraine in its war effort against the Russian invader, and occurs at the most dangerous moment, when Kyiv anticipates a new offensive by Vladimir Putin’s troops this week. spring or early summer.
The lack of projectiles, detected already at the end of 2023, is having a real impact on the combat in the south and east of Ukraine, which adds to the exhaustion of the soldiers – plus the pain for the dead and wounded – and the urgent need for fresh troops, while the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, talks about how to expand mobilization and recruitment, but cannot decide to take unpopular steps.
In February, superiority in firepower and number of soldiers allowed Russia to take Avdiyivka, a city in the Donetsk region that Ukraine had defended tooth and nail long before the start of the large-scale Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. The Ukrainian military, overwhelmed, withdrew by order of the high command.
Hence the Czech plan to gather and buy thousands of artillery shells for Ukraine on the world market – outlined by the president of the Czech Republic, former general Petr Pavel, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in February – is viewed with great hope by the Ukrainian Government. Prague has located 800,000 projectiles of various calibers in warehouses in countries outside the EU, and at least 18 allied countries, including Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, have committed to contributing money to finance the purchase.
“We hope that this Czech initiative, to which Luxembourg has joined, will help us and that starting in April we will have enough ammunition on our front line to be able to deter,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmihal said last week during a visit to Luxembourg. But the acquisition process is complicated and the April horizon is too optimistic. According to the Czech Republic, the first deliveries could be in June.
However, time is of the essence, because other sources of supply are either blocked or are not advancing quickly enough. The approval of a US military aid package to Kyiv of about 60 billion dollars (about 55.3 billion euros) has been held up for months in the House of Representatives due to the veto of some Republican parliamentarians. To alleviate this, the White House has raised an endowment of 300 million dollars (274 million euros) thanks to savings in recent Pentagon purchases, which were announced two weeks ago. The amount will go to medium-range ammunition, but it will only be enough for a few weeks of combat.
Kyiv’s other major supporter, the European Union, had promised one million projectiles by March, but these days it is only able to deliver half of that (524,000). The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said last week that the EU will be able to ship 1.1 million units to Ukraine by the end of this year.
From that moment on, community countries will have the capacity to manufacture around 1.4 million 155-millimeter projectiles per year, Borrell said. For its part, Ukraine has reinforced its artillery manufacturing – it keeps the figures secret – but the reality is that it depends on supplies from its allies.
“The Czech Republic has reactivated relations from the post-Soviet period; When the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact fell, the Central European countries found themselves with large quantities of weapons, tanks and military material that were no longer necessary, and they sold them to third countries, and due to that relationship of trust from the past, the industry The Czech arms company has now been able to recontact them at the request of our Government,” explains Jakub Janda, director of the European Values ??Center for Security Policy, a Czech think tank on security policy with a European perspective.
Speaking from Prague, Janda points out that “these countries prefer not to be identified, not only because of possible retaliation from Russia, but also because of fear of China.” Sellers include mainly nations from the Middle East and Africa, but also some from Asia and Latin America.
The 800,000 units that Prague has found are basically of two calibers. (The caliber is the inner diameter of the artillery piece from which the projectile is fired). These are 500,000 155-millimeter projectiles, the standard for NATO and modern Western armies, and the remaining 300,000 are 122 caliber, typical of Soviet weapons.
Howitzer shots – the name given to both the projectile and the artillery piece that fires it – can reach targets located at a distance of between 24 and 32 kilometers, which is why they are highly valued by ground forces to attack enemy positions from a distance. protected distance.
“The Czech initiative is not for rifle or machine gun ammunition for infantry; Ukraine is now in a defensive position, and what it urgently needs right now is above all artillery,” continues Jakub Janda, himself a reservist in the Czech army. The Russian-Ukrainian war has turned into a real artillery duel. Despite the intense use of drones, missiles and tanks, artillery fire has been responsible for 70% of the casualties on both sides, according to a report by the publication Rivista Italiana Difesa (RID).
EU experts estimate that Ukraine needs at least 357,000 of these projectiles per month to effectively support its military objectives. “The Czech initiative is still a short-term solution for a couple of months, while the European industry increases its production, which is not going to go so fast either; It takes at least a year and the war will unfortunately continue,” says analyst Jakub Janda.
Faced with this, Russia needs four million projectiles to hold the front and currently has no shortage of artillery, according to research by the British think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). The Russian military industry is operating at full capacity and is probably already capable of producing a million shells a year, General Martin Herem, commander of the Estonian armed forces, said in January.
Russia also receives ammunition from abroad, especially from North Korea, a country that, according to Ukrainian intelligence, has sent Putin one million 122 and 152 millimeter projectiles, the two usual calibers of Soviet weapons, which Russia continues to use. Countering the four million Russian howitzers with a similar number in Ukraine, from its own origin or supplied by the allies, seems a titanic task, unless the Western military industry starts producing on a piece-rate basis.
