2024-07-20T15:37:00+03:00 War in Ukraine 2024-09-15T04:14:06+03:00

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Years of US and NATO miscalculations led to dire shell shortage in Ukraine – Reuters investigation

Years of US and NATO miscalculations led to dire shell shortage in Ukraine – Reuters investigation

Since the occupation of Crimea by the aggressor state russia in 2014, politicians in America and Europe have not responded to repeated warnings about the deplorable state of the Western ammunition industry. As a result, the Allies proved unable to adequately supply Ukraine with key weapons, leading to an advantage in favor of russia.

This is stated in an investigation by the Reuters agency.

A shortage of 155mm artillery shells, the most important ammunition, turned the war in russia's favor, Reuters noted. The 155mm shell and its russian counterpart are considered decisive because they combine explosive power with increased range.

"The causes of the shell crisis began years ago. They are rooted in decisions and miscalculations made by the U.S. military and its NATO allies that occurred well before Russia’s 2022 invasion,” the Reuters investigation found.

Reuters interviewed dozens of current and former U.S., Ukrainian and NATO military officials and reviewed thousands of pages of confidential U.S. military briefings, public documents and other internal documents. The report states that:

• The production of 155mm projectiles fell so sharply that from the summer of 2014 to the fall of 2015, the U.S. did not replenish its stockpiles.
• Manufacturing defects and safety violations caused repeated shutdowns of production lines.
• The U.S. decision to change the type of explosives used in these shells was a too expensive failure: the Army spent USD 147 million on something it does not use.
• The replacement of an antiquated plant in Virginia that produced fuel for launching projectiles is a decade behind schedule and has nearly doubled in cost. This delay has made the U.S. more dependent on foreign raw materials than is publicly known. One internal U.S. Army document from 2021 detailed "foreign dependencies" on at least a dozen chemicals produced in China and India, countries that have close trade ties with russia.

The particular irony is that the pre-war U.S. plan to supply explosive TNT from abroad included contracts with a factory in the east of Ukraine that russia seized at the start of the war.

Lord David Richards, a former British chief of the defense staff and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said that after the end of the Cold War, Western politicians often ignored the advice of "more capable NATO commanders." According to him, these commanders warned about the danger of not increasing the stocks of artillery ammunition.

Instead, Richards said, policymakers resorted to what he called a "production gamble," assuming the military would be able to resume production in time when ammunition was needed.

"This is a problem that’s been long in the making," said Bruce Jett, who served as assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology from 2018 to January 2021.

The investigation found that between russia's seizure of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion in 2022, representatives of NATO's high command and officials who managed or supervised American munitions factories warned of the alliance's poor preparation. They privately and publicly informed the governments of the countries that in the event of war, an increase in the production of ammunition should not be expected. Because of the inability to respond to these warnings, many artillery production lines at factories in the United States and Europe have slowed down or closed altogether, Reuters informs.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on May 16, The Guardian announced that Ukraine's anti-missile defense is currently so weak that it is focused on deterring enemy aircraft from crossing the front line.

On May 30, the Financial Times reported that delayed payments to arms companies could lead to millions of munitions being sent to the aggressor state of russia instead of Ukraine.

On June 7, The Washington Post stated that the Air Force of Ukraine lacks anti-aircraft systems and ammunition to repel russian attacks.