The West is not producing enough. Will Ukraine run out of ammunition?

The West does not produce enough ammunition to meet the needs of the Ukrainian army. How will this issue affect hostilities and what can be done?

The Ukrainian army needs much more ammunition than the West is currently producing. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned about this. “The current rate of providing ammunition to Ukraine is many times higher than our current rate of production. This puts pressure on the military industry. (…) Therefore, we need to increase production and invest in our production capacity,” added Stoltenberg .

“We must prevent this at all costs”

“This offensive tactic that Russia has chosen – frontal attacks on the front line in many areas – can actually only be successful if Ukraine runs out of ammunition. And we, with our support, must prevent this at all costs,” says military expert Niko Lange in front of Deutsche Welle.

And there are already problems. The lead time for large-caliber ammunition, for example, is 28 months. “The orders from today will be fulfilled only after two and a half years,” explains Stoltenberg. And stocks are melting.

DV Ukraine correspondent Nick Connolly says many Ukrainian commanders face tough choices regarding the use of munitions. “I met howitzer and artillery commanders who told me they didn’t know how much longer they would be able to do their jobs if they were forced to withdraw from their positions and wait for more ammunition,” says Connolly. “It’s a very real problem.”

Security expert Frank Sauer believes that Germany and the West should have reacted much earlier and increased production.

According to ARD, the US has delivered or promised to deliver more than one million artillery shells. Because this created difficulties, they had to use ammunition depots in Israel and South Korea. According to experts, this shows that neither the US nor Europe is prepared to wage a conventional war.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also acknowledged the problem. “I can only sincerely ask the defense industry to maximize its capacity as soon as possible,” he said.

Solutions are sought worldwide. “Right now we’re seeing Ukraine and its allies looking for artillery ammunition all over the world – even in Pakistan and South Korea,” reports Nick Connolly.

“We have reports of Pakistani Soviet-caliber munitions heading there, as well as requests from US forces to send ammunition that is stored in South Korea to Ukraine.”