EPIDEMY OF SHELL STARVATION ON UKRAINIAN FRONTLINES

The enthusiasm of Kiev’s partners in the West to continue the war seems to have dropped significantly. After the failed counteroffensive, which showed the complete inability of the Ukrainian army to resist Russia, the West was faced with a choice. More and more leaders and their respective populations do not want to continue the war, which requires a large increase in funding for an incapacitated Ukraine, and in the worst case, direct military confrontation with Russia. More and more pessimistic reports are being published even by the MSM. They are pouring out details of problems in the Ukrainian army, from shell shortages and corruption to a shortage of recruits and low morale of the mobilized soldiers. For example, statistics published in The Wall Street Journal have recently made a splash. According to the paper, Russian artillery is now firing up to 10,000 shells per day, while the Armed Forces of Ukraine can only waste up to 2,000, which 5 times less. The situation at the front has changed dramatically compared to the summer of 2023, when, on the contrary, the Russian army experienced its own shell shortages. The artillery potential of the Ukrainian army has reportedly decreased by 3.5 times in the last 6 months. There is no mass production of ammunition in Ukraine. The only ammo factory in Luhansk was lost after Kiev launched a war against the population of Donbass. Since then Kiev has not been able to organize the construction of either large cartridge or shell enterprises. Both foreign and Ukrainian media are now crying about the shell starvation in the Ukrainian Army. In their interviews, Ukrainian commanders complain that due to the lack of artillery shells, they are forced to increasingly use unmanned aerial vehicles armed with explosives. However, they admit that drones cannot replace artillery. They cannot fly as far or as fast and cannot carry as much explosives as artillery can to hit the same large targets. Moreover, there is still no mass production of the necessary UAVs in Ukraine and the Russian army is qualitatively and quantitatively superior to the Ukrainian side in both their production and use in combat. In its turn, the Russian military does not admit a massive shortage of shells in the Ukrainian army. Ukrainians are still using NATO ammunition and remnants of Soviet reserves en masse, while experiencing various problems in different directions. Indeed Kiev’s army is experiencing systematic problems that reduce its combat capability, but the ongoing large media campaign promoted by controlled MSM is mainly aimed to encourage the doubting elites in NATO countries to continue the war rather than to admit Ukrainian defeat. The numerous reports may also be aimed to mislead the Russian leadership and affect the planning of Russian military operations.