With barely three months left until two years have passed since the invasion of Ukraine, European countries are trying to reiterate their support for the country by sending weapons, essential in an unequal contest. However, the European Union’s promise to send one million ammunition (basically howitzers and artillery shells) within a year, until March 2024, is becoming complicated, as Germany witnessed yesterday at a meeting of European Defense Ministers. .
“The million will not be reached, we must start from that base,” said the German Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, at the beginning of the meeting. “I did not promise a million shells, I consciously did not do it.” And he wondered “if [the figure of] one million was ever realistic.”
For now, the countries have only complied with the first phase of the ammunition shipment plan, which consisted of providing 300,000 rounds of ammunition from the countries’ reserves that Brussels was going to reimburse for the majority. But the next phase, which consists of countries signing contracts with the arms industry jointly and thus optimizing resources, is not going as quickly as initially expected. To do this, the rate of ammunition production must be increased.
The Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, after having traveled to European countries and studied the state of the industry, assured that its production capacity has increased between 20% and 30% since February. Breton was convinced that the EU will reach the goal of one million rounds, as long as the member states formalize the orders.
Along the same lines, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, admitted that “perhaps we will not have a million rounds in March, everything will depend on the orders [from the countries] and how long it will take the industry to react,” he explained.
In any case, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, asked the States to concentrate on sending the ammunition to Ukraine when they have it. “There is no lack of production capacity, it is just that the product is sent to other markets. So maybe what we have to try is to move production to the number one priority, which is the Ukrainians,” he stated.
The European arms industry is eminently export-oriented, with France at the forefront of sales. Around 40% of production is exported to third countries.
At the threshold of winter, with a Russian offensive underway, Ukraine has spent almost 24 months firing more projectiles per day than the European industry produces. That is why yesterday’s message was very focused on the need to increase production. “We are in a situation in which we not only have to make decisions, we have to act… we have made progress (…) but it is not enough,” summarized the Estonian Defense Minister, Hanno Pevkur.
For his part, according to Efe, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, yesterday addressed with his military leadership “the increase in the number of enemy attacks” in the areas of Avdivka and Kúpiansk, two Ukrainian towns on the eastern front that Russia is trying to protect. conquer with massive deployments of troops.
“The military reported an increase in the number of enemy attacks: Avdivka, Kupiansk, the Donetsk area,” Zelensky said, referring to the Ukrainian province of Donetsk, where Avdivka and some of the hottest spots on the front are located. The head of the Ukrainian state was “grateful to the military who maintain their positions and do not stop offensive operations” on the front.
Russia has been carrying out ambitious defensive actions on the eastern front for weeks. According to the Ukrainian Army, the Russians suffer massive casualties in these operations and have not achieved the expected progress.
Zelensky also discussed with those responsible for Ukraine’s national security and defense the situation in the city of Kherson, in southern Ukraine, where at least three people were killed by Russian artillery fire on Monday.
