EU has doubled its capacity to produce ammunition for Ukraine and is delivering it with significant delay - media
The European Union has probably overestimated its capacity to produce 155 mm artillery shells for Ukraine by several times, and the promised ammunition is arriving in the country with a significant delay. The available volumes may be at least twice as modest as stated by EU officials.
This is stated in the investigation of the Schemes project, Censor.NET reports.
Reasons for delays
As noted, as of June 2024, Ukraine has received just over 500,000 shells from Europe instead of the promised million, with a significant delay in delivery.
An association of investigative journalists, which included representatives of the Schemes project and a number of Western media, found out why Europe has had difficulty increasing its ammunition production capacity.
Anonymous sources among representatives of arms manufacturers told journalists that there is currently a global shortage of gunpowder and explosives in the world.
In addition, Western governments are trying to avoid signing long-term contracts with arms manufacturers, which is why the military-industrial complex is experiencing a lack of funding.
At the same time, unnamed European officials blamed the very structure of the European Union - bureaucratic and sluggish - for the delays in the supply of artillery shells to Ukraine.
The third reason for breaking promises to Ukraine was the inadequacy of the EU's assessment of its production capacities.
Czech initiative
"The so-called Czech ammunition initiative, which also involves Denmark and the Netherlands, has not yet met initial expectations.
In February, President Petr Pavel said that the Czech Republic had identified 800,000 artillery shells in the world that could be quickly sent to Ukraine if the money was available. But progress has been slow, and a senior source in Ukraine's Defence Ministry said the first shipment, which arrived in June, consisted of less than 50,000 shells," the journalists write.
A source familiar with the initiative told Radio Liberty that of the 15 countries that agreed to jointly buy ammunition for Ukraine, only six had made their contributions as of mid-June, while the other nine said the money was coming.
"So far, we have raised enough funds, including pledges that we are counting, for 500,000 shells," Tomáš Kopecký, the Czech government's envoy for Ukraine's reconstruction, told Investigace.CZ.
According to him, this is a matter of finance. The problem is not so much political preferences as lack of funding.
Investigative journalists also managed to get acquainted with an internal report of the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall from January this year.
The document states that the concern's production capacity is 350,000 shells per year, while other leading European manufacturers are capable of producing another 200,000 rounds of ammunition per year.
This brings the total annual ammunition production capacity in Europe to 550,000 155mm artillery shells. This estimate contradicts the European Commission's statement that as of January 2024, Europe had increased its production capacity to one million shells per year.
In response to a journalist's inquiry about the discrepancies in the estimates, representatives of the European Commission noted that their statements on ammunition production were "based on facts" and "taking into account current investments" in the military-industrial complex.
What do they say in Ukraine?
At the same time, Minister for Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamyshyn believes that Ukraine will never be able to meet its domestic demand for shells on its own.
"We will never be able to produce as much ammunition as our Armed Forces need now," Kamyshyn told Schemes.
According to Ukraine's Defence Minister Rustem Umierov, the current requirement of the Defence Forces is 200,000 shells per month. However, the EU and the US combined cannot meet this need.
What can be done?
The project's journalists emphasise that even if the EU reaches a volume of 1.7 million shells by the end of 2024, this will still be only half of Russia's artillery ammunition production capacity, which reaches 4-4.5 million per year.
In addition to all this, it should be borne in mind that not all shells produced in the EU are sent to Ukraine. European countries keep some for themselves. This is necessary to replenish their own stocks (after they give Ukraine what they have) and to meet NATO's requirement to have enough shells in their warehouses for 30 days of possible high-intensity combat operations, the investigation says.
Earlier it was reported that the Czech Republic had signed a contract for the first 180,000 pieces of artillery ammunition for Ukraine and was working on obtaining another 300,000 pieces.
The partner countries plan to send Ukraine half a million rounds of ammunition by the end of 2024 as part of the Czech initiative.
