Improving spring weather and a new influx of Western weapons and equipment has the Ukraine conflict poised to enter a new phase.
Ukrainian forces are running so short of ammunition that some frontline artillery units are limited to firing only once or twice a day.
According to the Washington Post, the 59th Motorised Brigade is allowed to fire only two shells at Russian forces per day, compared with 20 or 30 previously.
”We don’t have a lot of ammunition, so that’s why we don’t work a lot,” a commander said.
The shell shortage comes as the Ukrainian military gears up for a spring counter-offensive. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that the offensive cannot go ahead until Ukraine receives more weapons from its Western backers.
But Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary-general, has told Ukraine that the West just can’t supply Ukrainian forces fast enough to maintain its rate of fire. Russian forces have also complained that they are running low on ammunition, but Ukrainian commanders have said that Russian supplies of artillery shells to its frontline units appear to be far more efficient than their own.
”We have repeatedly said there was no ‘shell hunger’ where Russia has focused its effort, whereas in our case these [problems] are along the Bakhmut, Kupyansk and Lyman fronts,” Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesman for the eastern segment of Ukraine’s armed forces, told Ukrainian radio this week. “Unfortunately, Russia still has significant capacities to attack our positions.”
The West’s supply lines into Ukraine are long and complicated and are regularly targeted by Russian missiles and drones.
But weapons experts have said that the main problem is that the West’s military manufacturing base simply wasn’t geared up to produce enough munitions to feed such an exhausting war, which has now solidified along static frontlines and forced both armies to fall back on artillery to both protect their positions and support infantry attacks.
Jimmy Rushton, a British defence analyst based in Kyiv, said that Western policy-makers needed to quickly work out how to boost their production of artillery shells.
“It underlines the critical importance of Western efforts to increase the production and supply of munitions,” he said.
