The Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksii Reznikov, in his interview for Babel, told in particular what the current situation with ammunition for Ukraine is in the conditions of the war against russians.
According to the Minister, Ukraine will rely on two sources of supply: own production and orders from the enterprises of partner countries. It is necessary to count on both domestic and foreign supplies at the same time due to the shortage of production capacity. For example, all factories in Europe can produce a maximum of 600,000 152-mm projectiles per year. But at the same time, as Reznikov says, the figures of the shells production by Ukroboronprom don’t make any relief.
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Regarding cartridges for small arms, Mr. Reznikov presents the following picture. In order to fully comply with the strategic stockpile regulations given the available number of small arms, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine must purchase and store 64 billion cartridges of only 5.45 mm at an estimated cost of 27 billion dollars. Reznikov did not give the numbers for other calibers.
If read literally, the cost of one 5.45 mm cartridge comes to $0.45 per unit. But it is quite likely that this is simply a maximum price that is set when planning purchases, and the real cost of such cartridges will still be lower.
As for russians, here Reznikov gives the following data. Until recently, russians fired up to 60,000 shells per day along the entire front line, but now this indicator has dropped to 20,000 shells per day. If this figure is multiplied by 30 days, then it turns out exactly as much as the whole of Europe produces in a year. And that despite the fact that russians still continue to use their Soviet reserves.
Therefore, as Reznikov emphasized, due to all these reasons, the British Secretary of State for Defense Ben Wallace said not to even think of copying russian tactics, since Ukraine is given high-precision weapons so that Ukraine’s military could fire one shot, not 10 or 12.
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