Russia outpaces U.S. and EU threefold in producing artillery ammunition: CNN
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11.03.2024, 15:35
Russia, which has shifted its economy to war mode, currently produces approximately three times as much artillery ammunition as the U.S. and European countries produce with the intention of transferring these weapons to Ukraine, the American station CNN noted on Monday.
Military factories in Russia operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in 12-hour shifts. Approximately 3.5 million citizens are currently employed in the arms production sector, compared to 2-2.5 million before the invasion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin can produce around 250,000 artillery shells per month, totaling approximately 3 million per year. In contrast, the United States and European countries combined can only produce 1.2 million such missiles for Ukraine, according to NATO informants cited by CNN.
The analysis emphasizes that Russia faces serious problems, including producing new tanks and maintaining old ones, but it is assessed that “the side that fires more artillery shells will probably win the war.”
“A production war is what we are in now,” said a senior NATO official.
According to experts quoted by CNN, supplying Kyiv with this weapon is a more crucial factor than providing it with F-16 multi-role aircraft or M-1 Abrams tanks.
As a reminder, Washington’s goal is to achieve a production level of 100,000 pieces of artillery ammunition per month by the end of 2025—more than twice less than Russia’s current capabilities. However, even this task seems challenging due to the congressional stalemate regarding further financing of military aid to Ukraine.
Kremlin’s war machine working at full gear
“The Kremlin has put everything it has into play…Their war machine works at full gear,” said a senior European intelligence official. It is essential to note that last year, Iran transferred at least 300,000 artillery shells to Russia, while North Korea sent at least 6.7 thousand containers containing millions of such ammunition—emphasized CNN, citing its own informants.
The equivalent of these actions in the U.S. would only occur if President Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act, giving the head of state the right to order companies to quickly produce weapons to support the state’s defense, noted a representative of the authorities in Washington, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity.
Artillery ammunition shortages are indicated as one of the reasons why Ukrainian troops lost control of Avdiivka in the Donetsk Oblast in mid-February. The Russians can currently fire about 10,000 artillery shells per day, while the Ukrainians can only manage about 2,000, as reported by the American magazine “Forbes” last week.
“The number one issue that we’re watching right now is the munitions,” the NATO official said. “It’s those artillery shells because that’s where Russia really [is] mounting a significant production advantage and mounting a significant advantage on the battlefield,” he further added.
