Ukraine says it can't fire more than 2,000 shells a day as Western allies fail to meet pledges: report
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.
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 still don't see the step where you actually make the shell legally. I am familiar with the procurement labyrinth, but how do I have samples ready when I respond to a request? Where does that authorization come from?
Also, my point still stands - you first make bullets, then move onto weapons. To produce weapons, you need permission and a lot of red tape to cut through. Once you have that done, then you move onto grenades with even more tape. Then when you move onto grenade launchers, etc etc, you already have a wealth of knowledge on how to file every form, what you need to be able to produce it, about safeties.
The answer to your direct question is "I don't know because I don't make artillery". The answer to "how do I make a medical device and have it be legal", about which I know plenty, cannot fit into any number of comments. It's something you do for a number of months, maybe even years. It depends on every country. It depends on the medical device. It depends on the people you have, on the money available. It isn't an answer to a question.
Too much work. I'm just going to build a giant cannon for Saddam Hussein
Well, look for the info. Every business owner needs to do plenty of research. Just typing into google led me to a barnes & noble book "for dummies" on how to start an artillery business.
Boooorrriiinnnggg!
I think asking randoms on the Internet that question is a great way to star in War Dogs 2
I really don't think this information is meant to be secret. I can't imagine the US doesn't want more domestic weapon manufacturers vying for their contracts.
Edit: I thought this was a different movie. I haven't seen it, the description is vague... but maybe this is the sequel.
It's not that it's a secret, it's that you definitely want the answers from legal professionals and not internet randoms lol
Yeah... I have already found way better information directly off the DOD website. Still not entirely clear how you get authority for testing though.
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.
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.
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?
No, what makes you think that?
There's 8 billion people on the planet and 400 mil native English speakers. You do the math. If you can.
That doesn't answer my question though.
Let me spell it out for you then. The answer is most likely no. It's also irrelevant
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.
Option 3: Grind Russia down to a halt, then throw them out of the country.
If you think that this war can't be won you haven't talked to Ukrainians. Also, do have a look at the loss statistics Russia vs. Ukraine. Even Russia can't keep up this level of attrition, least of all in an offensive war.
That might be possible if they could maintain their momentum, but they clearly haven't and cannot. This is not a war of power or superiority or willpower, it's simply a matter of resources. Even though Russia has lost much more, they also have much more to lose.
First off, even if the west stopped supporting Ukraine tomorrow they'd fight on: With Molotov cocktails, as they did in the beginning. (Also it'd be practically impossible to stop the Poles from putting boots on the ground in that situation, different topic).
Secondly, resources is exactly why we're supporting Ukraine. "They'd lose if we stop therefore we have to stop" is not really a good argument if you ask me.
And Russia doesn't have that much more to lose while Ukraine is starting to strike deep into Russia breaking their backbone. Can't circumvent oil sanctions if you have no ports to fill up ships with. The Russians can buy North Korean artillery with missile tech blueprints but China's "friendship" only goes so far as Russia's chequebook: No money, no silicon. Ukraine's support backbone, meanwhile, is located deep within NATO territory.
And WTF is "maintain their momentum" supposed to mean. This isn't a 400m race, or a game of CSGO. There's ebbs and floods in every war as the sides manoeuvre and adapt.
It must be really cool to see the world as an action movie. Unfortunately, here in the real world, things don't always play out where the good guys win through hard work and perseverance.
This is a very simple concept: big army with lots of troops and supplies needs to hold ground behind big ass river. Smaller army with less supplies needs to advance across big ass river. Not exactly a good scenario. Momentum is important in this situation because without it, the enemy builds defenses like trenches along the river. That momentum has already been lost.
As for the Ukrainians fighting on forever, Poland getting involved, and China abandoning Russia; this is entirely speculation based on your personal vibes. None of the factual ground evidence supports any of it.
No. To fulfil their war goals Russia needs to move to the oblast borders, also over that river, just to gain control over territory they already claim to be legally part of the Russian Federation. They're not doing that. They have, in your words, no momentum. What they do have is getting attritted.
Read the polls.
If Russia was intended to continue advancing, they wouldn't have dug trenches. They're playing the long game. They knew the US would abandon Ukraine at the first opportunity and we did. This is just as much a proxy war with the West as it is a war with Ukraine. It's within the US's best interest to keep the war going on as long as possible so as soon as Ukraine started making gains we decided to pull back on the reigns.
War goals don't need to be achieved for Russia to declare victory. Putin would surely spin it as him being a kind leader that's willing to accept peace over war goals. But the real war goals have already been achieved anyways.
Polls = most accurate representation of real world scenarios that never differ from what actually happens...oh wait.
How to tell me you have no idea about strategy without telling me you don't have any idea about strategy.
Ukraine, too, is digging trenches. Now what, are you claiming Ukraine doesn't want to regain its territory?
Oh, indeed, some truth at least: Yes this is a proxy war between South and North Korea. South Korea's proxy is Ukraine, the EU and US (and a couple others), while North Korea's proxy is Russia.
See, both sides to a conflict need to be proxies for something to be a proxy war.
First off, no it isn't. Secondly, that's not European strategy. Thirdly, if that's US government strategy you should call your representatives and tell them to deliver weapons ASAP so that Russia can be thrown out of Ukraine quicker.
Indeed, Russia could withdraw and Putin could still declare victory. That's not what he's doing, though: He legally annexed the whole of even Kherson and Zaporizha Oblast, I think even Odessa (broadly speaking: The whole Black Sea coast) and any "peace offer" heard from Russia includes Ukraine giving up those territories which Russia doesn't even hold.
You think this is a proxy war between North and South Korea?! Welp, now that you've showed your hand I can see I'm debating a moron and there's no winning this one. Enjoy eating crayons, little buddy
He was mocking you. Your translation software didn't handle the nuance of sarcasm.
woosh.
This is the hard truth that people on these forums don't want to accept.