Russian ammunition ‘rapidly dwindling’ as war drags on, US official says
Mike Brest
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Russia’s ammunition stockpiles are continuing to decrease dramatically throughout the war with Ukraine, forcing them to use less reliable munitions, according to a senior U.S. defense official.
The Russian military’s diminished stockpiles have been widely reported, but during a Monday briefing, the official provided a timeline for how long the Pentagon believes the Kremlin can continue firing fully serviceable artillery and rocket ammunition.
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“At the rate of fire that Russia has been using its artillery and rocket ammunition,” the official explained. “In terms of what we would call fully serviceable artillery and rocket ammunition, they could probably do that until early 2023. Their stocks of, again, fully serviceable ammunition, you know, this would be new ammunition is rapidly dwindling, which is probably forcing them to increasingly use ammunition and what we would consider the graded conditions.”
Graded ammunition is when “you load the ammunition, and you cross your fingers and hope it’s going to fire or when it lands that it’s going to explode,” the military official explained. In essence, they come with much more unpredictability.
“This essentially puts the Russian forces in a position to have to make a choice about what risks it’s willing to accept in terms of increased failure rates. Unpredictable performance, and whether or not these degraded munitions would require any type of refurbishment, which of course requires a certain amount of expertise in times and so ultimately, broadly speaking, our assessment is that the Russian military will very likely struggle to replenish its reserve of fully serviceable artillery and rocket ammunition through foreign suppliers, increased domestic production, and refurbishment.”
Russia, facing the reality of its depleted stockpiles and an insufficient defense industrial base, has sought to get weapons for the war from both Iran and North Korea.
Iran has become Russia’s “top military backer” over the course of their war in Ukraine, while the two country’s growing military partnership is “transforming their relationship into [a] full-fledged defense partnership,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Friday. Iran has provided Russia with “several hundred UAVs” that have been used in their attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, he added, which has left millions of civilians to face the harsh winter with a power grid facing a significant burden.
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All of Ukraine’s thermal and hydroelectric power stations have been damaged, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Sunday.
“All thermal and hydroelectric power stations were damaged, and 40% of the high-voltage network facilities were damaged to varying degrees,” he said, according to CNN. “Each of us must realize that this winter, we will have to live through … significant restrictions on electricity consumption.”