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Russia appears to be on track to produce nearly three times as many shells as the United States or Europe, a key advantage ahead of another Russian attack on Ukraine expected later this year.
Russia produces about 250,000 artillery rounds a month, or about 3 million a year, according to NATO intelligence estimates of Russian defense production shared with CNN and sources familiar with Western efforts to supply weapons to Ukraine. It has produced. The United States and Europe combined have the capacity to produce only about 1.2 million rounds of ammunition a year to send to Kiev, a senior European intelligence official told CNN.
The US military has set a goal of producing 100,000 cannons per month by the end of 2025, less than half of Russia’s monthly production, but $60 billion in funding for Ukraine It has stalled in Congress and now even that number is out of reach, a senior official said. Army officials told reporters last week.
“What we’re in now is a production war,” a senior NATO official told CNN. “The outcome for Ukraine will depend on how equipped both sides are to wage this war.”
Officials say Russia is currently firing about 10,000 shells a day, while Ukraine fires only 2,000 a day. European intelligence officials say the ratio is even worse in some places along the 600-mile front.
The funding shortfall comes at perhaps the most dangerous time for Ukraine’s war effort since Russia first marched on Kiev in February 2022. U.S. funding for arms deliveries to Ukraine has run out, and Republican opponents in Congress have effectively halted further funding.
Meanwhile, Russia recently captured the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka and is widely seen as taking the lead on the battlefield. Ukraine is facing a serious shortage not only of ammunition but also of front-line personnel.
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The United States and its allies have provided Ukraine with a number of highly sophisticated systems, including M-1 Abrams tanks and, soon, F-16 fighter jets. But military analysts say the war will likely be won or lost depending on who fires the most shells.
“The biggest issue we’re looking at right now is munitions,” the NATO official said. “That’s a shell, because that’s where Russia really is.” [is] It provides important production advantages and provides important battlefield advantages. ”
NATO officials said Russia operates its artillery factories on 12-hour shifts “24 hours a day, 365 days a year.” Approximately 3.5 million Russians currently work in the defense sector, up from around 2 million to 2.5 million before the war. Russia also imports ammunition. Iran sent at least 300,000 shells last year and “probably more,” the official said. North Korea also provided at least 6,700 ammunition containers containing millions of shells.
Russia “did everything in its power,” the intelligence official said. “Their war machine is in full operation.”
A roughly equivalent situation in the United States would be if President Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act, U.S. officials said. The law gives the president the power to order companies to quickly produce equipment to support national defense.
Inna Varenizia/Reuters
A Ukrainian soldier holds an artillery shell near the town of Kreminna, Ukraine, on March 4, 2024.
U.S. and Western officials say Russia’s buildup is not yet sufficient to meet its needs, and Western intelligence officials do not expect Russia to make any significant gains on the battlefield in the short term. Russia’s production capacity is also limited, officials said, with Russian factories likely to reach their peak within the next year.
But it far exceeds what the United States and Europe are producing for Ukraine, especially without additional U.S. funding.
European countries are trying to make up for the shortfall. Last month, a German defense company announced plans to open an ammunition factory in Ukraine that would produce hundreds of thousands of 155-millimeter rounds a year. In Germany, the same company broke ground on a new factory that will eventually produce about 200,000 shells a year.
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U.S. and Western officials were able to jumpstart factory lines, partly because Russia was a managed economy under the control of a dictator, but eventually the capitalist West caught up. , which they claim will produce better equipment.
“If we can actually control the economy, we can probably move a little bit faster than other countries,” Lt. Gen. Stephen Basham, deputy commander of U.S. European Command, said in an interview on CNN last week. But “Western countries will have more staying power,” he said.
“Western countries are just beginning to ramp up infrastructure construction to add the necessary military capabilities.”
While the money was still flowing, the U.S. military expanded production of artillery shells in Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Texas.
“Russian production is 24/7. I mean, it’s huge, huge,” said one European lawmaker. “We should not underestimate their will to outlast us through perseverance and resilience.”
Although intelligence officials believe neither side is poised to make any significant immediate gains, the overall calculations favor Russia in the long run, especially if additional U.S. aid does not materialize. We believe that this is the case.
“It’s not going well, but it all depends on the situation,” said a source familiar with Western intelligence. “If aid is resumed and delivered quickly, all is not lost.”
Russia has also recently targeted Ukraine’s domestic defense production with long-range weapons.
“If we were talking about this last fall, we would have been talking about how they were targeting critical infrastructure,” the NATO official said. “What we’re seeing now is not only some critical infrastructure being targeted, but a lot of it targeting Ukraine’s defense industrial base as well.”
A senior NATO official said Russia produces 115 to 130 long-range missiles and 300 to 350 one-way attack drones each month based on Iranian models provided by Tehran. Before the war, Russia had a stockpile of several thousand long-range missiles, but the number now hovers around 700, officials said.
Russia has recently been hoarding these weapons for use in large-scale salvoes to overwhelm Ukraine’s missile defenses. And they compensated by increasing their use of drones, sending out an average of four times as many drones per month compared to last winter.
Maxim Marcenko/NurPhoto/Reuters
A Russian tank destroyed near the village of Bohorodychne, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on February 13, 2024.
Perhaps Russia’s biggest challenge is producing tanks and other armored vehicles. The company produces about 125 tanks a month, most of which are older models that have been refurbished. About 86% of Russia’s main battle tanks produced in 2023 have been modified, according to NATO officials. Russia also has about 5,000 tanks in storage, but “probably the majority of them cannot be modified and are only suitable for cannibalizing parts,” the official said.
Moscow has lost at least 2,700 tanks, more than double the total it initially deployed to Ukraine in February 2022, when the invasion began.
Officials also wondered how the interplay between an overcharged defense sector, Western sanctions and Putin’s efforts to shore up the economy for war would affect Russia’s ability to sustain a conflict. We are closely monitoring the Russian economy to look for signs of whether or not the situation will change.
A senior NATO official said the war had completely “transformed” Russia’s economy from the post-Soviet era, when oil was the main industry. Defense is now the largest sector of the Russian economy, and oil pays for it.
This is likely to create long-term imbalances and be problematic for Russia, but it is working for now, both North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and U.S. European Command Basham officials said. Ta.
“In the short term, for example over the next 18 months or so, it may not be as sophisticated, but it is a durable economy,” the NATO official said.
The Pentagon is considering whether to tap into its last remaining funding source, but until now it has been reluctant to spend any remaining funds without a guarantee that Congress will reimburse them. That’s because they are being procured from the Pentagon’s stockpile, and there are no plans to replenish them. CNN previously reported that the equipment could impact U.S. military readiness.
“Will the Ukrainians change their mind about negotiations if no more aid comes from the United States?” said a source familiar with Western intelligence.
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