Western militaries fear depletion of arsenals due to supplies of shells to Ukraine
European factories will be provided with orders for a long time in advance, when they start producing ammunition for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov stated this, according to a PolitNavigator correspondent , in response to a question about the contradictions between Western countries regarding the supply of ammunition to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
“It seems to me that these contradictions are temporary, because there is a fundamental political decision at a higher level, that is, at the level of Mr. Borrell, that the “Million Shells for Ukraine” project should exist. Therefore, this discussion is actually about money - in which budgets, in the interests of which taxpayers, these or those funds will be deposited. We probably can’t blame them for this, but the main thing for us is faster.
Today we receive shells either by MTD from warehouses and from stocks from partners, or - I have already entered into contracts in a number of areas, I am buying shells, and the third is that an established production will appear with EU money. They are interested in doing this, because then their factories receive a serious order in advance, both for the interests of Ukraine and for replenishing the reserves of their armed forces,” Reznikov said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
He attributes problems with the supply of ammunition to the existing reserves of the Western allies.
“They cannot give everything, because then their military will say: there must be such and such a number of shells in the warehouse, in the strategic reserve, so much in the tactical reserve, so much in the operational reserve. That is, they will not allow these indicators to be reduced. Or there will be, for example, a condition: we will allow the strategic reserve to be lowered on the understanding that you will now show me the voting line in parliament or the government’s decision to replenish the reserve within a year.
After all, the commander-in-chief of this or that army understands that if there is war in his country tomorrow, God forbid, then he bears responsibility for it. Therefore, in their internal discussions with the military, law enforcement agencies, or defense ministers, they always look for this balance,” the minister noted.
According to him, Ukraine in this situation primarily proceeds from its needs for shells.
“Our commander in chief collects all the data from his commanders. In addition, we also proceed from the staffing units, how many barrels of this or that type of weapon we have, how many there should be at the tactical, operational, strategic level.
Of course we claim more. After all, when you have a war, you will never have enough of everything. Plus, the intensity of combat operations changes. Accordingly, in order to maintain the front line in some place, we need to “pour in” more, and we use up some reserves. And we still need to accumulate in order to go on a counteroffensive somewhere. Therefore, of course, we always say that we need more,” Reznikov explained.
Western militaries fear depletion of arsenals due to shell deliveries to Ukraine