Following the stalemate in US military aid, a new milestone has marked the counter-offensive launched by Ukraine five months ago to recapture the regions occupied by Russia: Kiev’s army is in danger of running out of ammunition. The delivery of artillery shells promised by EU countries has been greatly delayed: at least a million shells were supposed to arrive by March, but to date just over 300 thousand have been counted in Ukrainian warehouses. This was revealed by the Bloomberg press agency.
The EU gave the green light last July to the ASAP plan, which envisages allocating 1 billion euros for the purchase and production of ammunition to be sent to Ukraine. However, the plan is having difficulty in being implemented. On the one hand, there are the difficulties experienced by the European war industry in increasing the rate of bullet production. On the other hand, according to those who follow ASAP closely, the increase in ammunition prices may make the budget allocated by Brussels insufficient.
For Ukraine, delays in ammunition deliveries could further complicate the counteroffensive, which is already moving more slowly than President Volodymyr Zelensky had hoped, and could present more worrying scenarios given the winter. The goal of the Ukrainian army was to break through Moscow’s defense system in the southeast of the country, divide the enemy army in two, and break the land bridge connecting Russia to Crimea, through which men and women’s supplies passed. To date, this goal remains distant: within one hundred and fifty days, Kiev will have recaptured approximately 400 square kilometers of territory, according to Le Monde reports, “while the Russians still occupy just over 17% of Ukraine, or more than 100 square kilometers.” thousand square kilometers”.
But the worst could come at the beginning of 2024: According to many experts, Russia is defensive and saving on military means in order to accumulate the arsenal necessary to extinguish Zelensky’s hopes of reconquest. Some estimates predict that Russian factories will deliver 2 million shells to the Ukrainian military next year, not counting supplies from North Korea and other allies. It seems that the recruitment of new soldiers is proceeding faster than what is happening in the ranks of Kiev. In all this, Ukraine is weighed down by a US budget impasse that has blocked $60 billion in military aid. The new crisis in the Middle East could distract the West from the Ukrainian front, as President Zelensky himself feared.
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Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
