Ukraine lacks ammunition even for defense — Politico

The Ukrainian Armed Forces have too few artillery shells even to defend effectively, let alone to transition to offense, which requires significantly more ammunition.

This is reported by Politico.

Despite Ukraine’s efforts to increase domestic production of shells, the country still relies on supplies from its allies, who are hesitant to deplete their own reserves. According to Ukrainian military sources, they never had a sufficient quantity of shells before, but the lack of additional Western assistance makes the situation even worse.

A high-ranking officer of the Ukrainian army, speaking on condition of anonymity to Politico, stated that Russia dominates the battlefield, considering that the Ukrainian Armed Forces significantly lag behind in the number of shells produced daily.

“Currently, in some directions, this number sometimes exceeds our response by many times,” noted the officer.

The acute shortage of shells, as the publication points out, is one of the key reasons that forced the Ukrainian army to transition to defense along the entire front. However, even in defensive operations, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are forced to conserve ammunition, which increasingly leads them to rely on drones on the battlefield, whose reserves are also not infinite.