1y ago

Ukraine says it can't fire more than 2,000 shells a day as Western allies fail to meet pledges: report

www.businessinsider.com

Ukraine is able to fire just 2,000 shells a day, its defense minister said.
That's about a third of what Russia is firing, Rustem Umerov added.
In a letter seen by Bloomberg, Umerov urged his EU counterparts to fulfill their ammo commitments.

60 comments

If there's one thing NATO needs to immediately address with its own supply chain, much less support for Ukraine, it's that artillery production has been woefully underprioritized.
That Russia alone is outproducing the combined efforts of NATO should have heads rolling in every procurement office in the West.
One estimate put Russian production at 7x that of NATO.
It's fine and dandy to point out that that discrepancy is partly going into air and naval munitions but that's just not an excuse for there not to be parity, much less a reverse in the production gap.
- How do I start an artillery shell manufacturing company? Not how do I make them, how do I get a contract without producing one and how can I start producing them without legal authority? How do I get that authority?
  
  "how do I start a company making these huge medical robots they use for surgery?" The answer is "you don't". You start off with a small company that does small things. You gain experience. And by the time you get to making an artillery shell, you know what people you need to hire, you have a network of people that probably includes someone in the military procurement. Rome wasn't built in a day.
  
  I think asking randoms on the Internet that question is a great way to star in War Dogs 2
- Maybe if certain NATO countries like Germany, Canada, and France listened to Trump, Obama, or Bush and actually put 2% into defense spending it wouldn't be this bad. They are three of the largest economies in NATO, and have been coasting for decades on appropriate spending.
- Why would they need production capacity to produce a product that is useless for the NATO military doctrine? That's just not how NATO countries wage war. Of course they don't have a good production capacity of a tool they are not likely to use. And even if they wanted to start to produce them at the start of the war, it wouldn't be ready today, it takes a lot of time and resources to build production capacity from scratch.
- Ukraine is a buffer to contain Russia and keep it away from the rest of Europe, but it isn't Israel or Taiwan in its importance.
  
  Ok bot
Full speed on the Palestinian genocide as well break our word to the embattled democracy... I'm so proud.
- Yeah but the poor IDF really need US taxpayers help! Heaven forbid it turns into a fair fight! /s
  Seriously, though. Hamas is so ridiculously outgunned that I can't imagine any good reason to continue supplying weapons to IDF. If they can't get the job done with what arms have been given then maybe they're not really trying to get the job done at all.
Am well aware war is stupidly expensive, but I really can't shake the feeling someone or somemany are skimming quite a bit of these helps and donations. Every now and then we see huge amounts of money given to Ukraine, to a level that is approaching GDP of some countries, and yet there's never enough of anything.
- You can't shoot money as artillery munition, first off you'd need a driver load and then it'll get all messed up. There's not enough shells because the west doesn't have much production capacity and doesn't deliver much, it's as simple as that.
  The stuff the US sends is overwhelmingly surplus hardware, kind of hard to make disappear, especially the large stuff. Reporting a rifle as lost to the enemy even though you grabbed it for yourself? Quite easy, but won't work often before people get suspicious. A whole crate? Command will have your ass. Stealing an Abrams? Forget it.
  It's the EU who is sending the most of the money and practically bankrolling the Ukrainian state -- their economy isn't exactly in a good place right now, tax revenue is low, and all the tax revenue they have they spend on the war. Thus, the EU is picking up bills for wages of civil servants, pensions, such stuff, to avoid Ukraine having to pay people in flour, onions, sunflower oil and eggs confiscated from farmers. Not good for morale, that kind of war economy.
  As to corruption in that area: EPPO has a working agreement with their Ukrainian counterpart, and seem to be very content with it. EPPO is the EU's prosecutor office, investigating and prosecuting crimes against the EU budget, headed by the gal who cleaned up Romania.
  Ukraine no doubt has an issue with corruption -- but also a people long fed up with the consequences of it, a government fed up with it, and a war that noone wants to see lost because of it, and a national identity that would like to very much distance itself from terminally corrupt Russia.
  
  headed by the gal who cleaned up Romania.
  While Kövesi did a bunch of good stuff and got some convictions, Romania is far, far from clean as far as corruption goes.
  
  Yeah, I guess that's the case. And I have nothing on that except how it feels, which is a pointless thing to rely on.
- As you said, war is stupidly expensive and Ukraine is defending itself agai at a country many times it's size that has many times it's resources and manpower and still manages to fight them off. I don't believe for a second that there is a lot of skimming going on as everybody in Ukraine knows what will happen if they lose.
  
  I have no evidence, of course. Just a feeling, which is a pointless metric. I think none of us really knew how much waging a war costs.
- Is English not your first language?
  
  Why would it be? This is the internet.
  
  You got a problem with that?
  
  There's 8 billion people on the planet and 400 mil native English speakers. You do the math. If you can.
I can't help but think of WW1 and the hundreds of thousands of shells used within hours at some battles. truly boggles the mind
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Ukraine is limited to firing 2,000 artillery shells a day, roughly one-third of Russia's capacity, the country's defense minister, Rustem Umerov, said in a letter seen by Bloomberg.
Writing to his EU counterparts, Umerov urged the bloc to fulfill its commitment of one million artillery shells as Ukraine's capacities are stretched thin across a 930-mile front line, the outlet reported.
As of November, the bloc had sent just 300,000 of the promised ammunition, an unnamed senior EU official told Politico, adding that it will be "very difficult to reach" the total by March.
The US has acknowledged the problem, with Celeste Wallander, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, telling reporters in January that the Pentagon is aware of concerns that Ukraine's armed forces "do not have the stocks and the stores of ammunition that they require."
Martin Herem, commander of Estonia's defense forces, told Bloomberg last week that he believes Russia is now capable of producing several million shells a year.
In December, one soldier told The Times of London that he now declines to target small groups of Russians, considering it not worth the expense in ammunition.
The original article contains 328 words, the summary contains 191 words. Saved 42%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
It doesn't seem that the Russian people are happy with this war either. I really feel there is an opportunity here to get the Russian people to stab Putin in the back. While I don't understand why Putin has any backers but it's clear so many Russians are suffering as well.
Especially considering how close Ukrainians, Belorussians, and European Russians are to each other in language and culture; you would think they could find some common ground. I know Ukrainians and Russians, losing their families for Putin's cause would be stupid.
- The rich are isolated from the war. It doesn't affect them so supporting Putin is easy. Like the US war in Iraq.
Solution: accept defeat. Draw new borders. Stop the bloodshed.
At this rate, if Ukraine depletes its ammunition, Russia will be able to roll over them. Best to draw up a treaty before the tables turn
- Do you think Russia would honor that treaty?
  
  I think Ukraine should set up the defenses they should have from the beginning to prevent an invasion.
  They "trusted" Russia before, it didn't work out for them.
  They "trusted" the international community before, it didn't work out for them.
  Now they have to trust themselves and mine the shit out of any border with Russia, regardless of if it looks like "escalation."
  
  Absolutely. That means they win and they get the land they sought after. One of their biggest goals was to regain control over the dnipro River so they could reopen the fresh water supply to Crimea that was cut off back in 2012
- Go suck Putin's cock a little harder, Vatnik. Ukraine's independence and territory are non-negotiable.
  
  It's sad how you people have been convinced that being rational means you're a traitor.
  Just shows how easily modern propaganda affects you.
  
  That mindset has lead to the loss of many wars throughout history. It's easy to have so much pride and valor when you're no where near the front lines.
- You want ten thousand Buchas? Because that's how you get ten thousand Buchas.
  
  Killings won't go any higher after a peace treaty than they would without one. Either the war goes on and Russians keep killing civilians in occupied territory, or Russians keep killing civilians in conquered territory. I'd even water that killings of civilians would decrease if the war ended.
  Option 1: keep fighting a war your losing, thus losing more soldiers, weapons, supplies, and civilians. Option 2: accept your losses and live to fight again another day.
- This is the hard truth that people on these forums don't want to accept.

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