Ukraine did not receive sufficient quantities of artillery ammunition
Kramatorsk, Ukraine:
As the war in Ukraine enters its third year, the infantrymen of the 59th Brigade face a bleak reality: They have run out of soldiers and ammunition and are unable to defend themselves against the Russian invaders.
One platoon leader, whose call sign was “Tygr,” estimated that only 60-70 percent of the brigade’s thousands of soldiers were still serving when the conflict began. The rest were killed, injured, or written off due to reasons such as old age or illness.
Heavy casualties for the Russian army were exacerbated by harsh conditions on the Eastern Front, where permafrost turned into thick mud in unusually warm temperatures, wreaking havoc on the health of soldiers.
“It’s raining, snowing, raining and snowing, and people have a simple flu or angina. They’ve been out of action for a while and there’s no one to take over from them,” said a company commander of the brigade. The call sign is “Limuzyn”. “The most pressing problem in every unit is the lack of personnel.”
On the second anniversary of the invasion on February 24, Vladimir Putin’s Russia is on the upper hand in a conflict that will recall the trench warfare and generals of World War I. The combination of high-tech drone warfare that sends tens of thousands of machines into the sky is more than.
Moscow has made small gains in recent months and scored a major victory over the weekend, taking control of Avdievka in the hotly contested eastern Donetsk region. A spokesman for the 3rd Independent Commando Brigade, one of the forces trying to take control of the town, said defenders were outnumbered seven to one.
Reuters interviewed more than 20 soldiers and commanders of infantry, drone and artillery units in different areas of the 1,000-kilometer frontline in eastern and southern Ukraine.
While there remains motivation to fight the Russian occupation, they spoke of the challenges of fending off a larger, better-supplied enemy, with Western military support slowing despite pleas from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for more military support.
Another 59th Brigade commander, Hryhoriy, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described relentless attacks by five to seven Russian soldiers who advanced as many as 10 times a day in what he called “flesh attacks” – This would be costly for the Russians but also pose a significant threat to his forces.
“When one or two defensive positions are fighting these attacks all day long, these people get tired,” said Helihori, who was standing with his exhausted men in a military camp far away from the Russian-occupied eastern city of Donets. There was a brief rotation of the front line near the g.
“The weapon is broken, and if it’s not possible to bring them more ammunition or replace the weapon, then you understand where that can lead.”
The Ukrainian and Russian defense ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the situation on the front lines and how both sides intend to continue the war until the end of the year.
Wanted: Fighters and Ammo
Kiev relies heavily on foreign money and equipment to fund its war, but with $61 billion in U.S. aid blocked by political bickering in Washington, it looks more exposed than at any time since the invasion began.
A soldier in the GRAD rocket artillery unit, call sign “Skorpion,” said his launcher, which uses Soviet-designed munitions that a handful of Ukraine’s allies possess, is currently operating at about 30 percent of its maximum capacity. .
“It’s been like this lately,” he said. “There’s not that much foreign ammunition.”
There was also a shortage of artillery shells as the West was unable to keep up with shipments for the protracted war. In addition to the U.S. suspension of supplies, the EU also admitted that it would be nearly halfway behind its target of supplying 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine by March.
Michael Kovman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank, and an expert on Russia’s military, estimated that Russian artillery fires at five times the rate of Ukrainian artillery, a figure also given by Hryholi of the 59th Brigade. .
“Ukraine is not receiving artillery ammunition in sufficient quantities to meet its minimum defense requirements, and this is not a sustainable situation,” Kovman added.
Moscow now controls nearly a fifth of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula it annexed in 2014, although the war front has largely ground to a halt over the past 14 months.
Ukrainian officials say its armed forces number about 800,000, while Putin ordered in December to increase Russian troops by 170,000 to 1.3 million.
Beyond personnel, Moscow’s defense spending dwarfs that of Ukraine. It earmarked $109 billion for the industry by 2024, more than double Ukraine’s $43.8 billion target.
A new law aimed at mobilizing 450-500,000 Ukrainians is slowly making its way through parliament, but for some fighting soldiers, massive reinforcements appear to be a distant hope.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov recently called Ukraine’s artillery and ammunition shortage “serious” in a letter to the European Union, urging his country’s leaders to do more to increase supplies.
His letter said Ukraine’s “absolutely critical minimum daily requirement” was 6,000 artillery rounds, but his troops could only fire 2,000 a day, the Financial Times reported.
Large-scale drone warfare
Traditional fighter aircraft are relatively rare on the front lines, mainly because of the deterrent effect of air defense systems. However, a different battle is raging in the skies, with both sides vying for the upper hand in drone technology.
Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are cheap to produce and can accurately monitor enemy movements and deliver munitions.
Kyiv has seen a boom in drone production and innovation and is developing advanced long-range drones, while Moscow has far outpaced its rivals through its own massive investments, allowing it to offset Ukraine’s early advantage.
The scale is staggering.
Digital Minister Mykhailo Fedorov told Reuters that Ukraine alone ordered more than 300,000 drones from manufacturers last year and more than 100,000 were sent to the front lines.
The focus now is on lightweight, flexible FPV drones that allow the operator or pilot to gain a first-person view via an onboard camera. In view of the battlefield advantages brought by this technology, President Zelensky has set a goal for Ukraine to produce 1 million FPV drones this year.
Limuzin, commander of the 59th Brigade, said Russia’s extensive use of drones has made it difficult for Ukrainian troops to establish or strengthen defensive positions.
“Our guys started doing something, a drone saw them and a second drone arrived and threw something at them.”
The drones also forced Russia to move valuable vehicles and weapons systems back several kilometers, according to two Ukrainian drone pilots from different units.
“It’s hard to find vehicles to hit now… most vehicles are 9 to 10 kilometers away, or even further,” said a pilot from the 24th Brigade whose call sign was “NATO.” “In the beginning, they felt comfortable seven kilometers away.”
Two other Ukrainian drone pilots, Leleka and Darwin, both serving with the 92nd Brigade’s elite Achilles drone unit, described two or three drones sometimes forming a formation over the battlefield. Queue up, waiting to attack enemy targets.
Leleka recalled once seeing four drones from different Ukrainian forces flying in to attack a target: “Like taxis at the airport, one drone came, then another, then a third shelf.”
The same is true for the Russians, who now far outnumber the Ukrainians in drone numbers, according to Ukrainian pilots from all three forces. The Russian Defense Ministry said this month that the country had increased production of military drones over the past year, but did not disclose specific figures.
As the use of drones grows, both sides are increasing the deployment of electronic warfare systems that can disrupt the frequency with which pilots send commands to drones, causing drones to fall from the sky or miss their targets.
Darwin, who dropped out of medical school to join the military at age 20 when Russia invaded, compared the current drone arms race to that between aviation and air defense: Aircraft dominated World War II, but modern Air defense systems greatly limited their use in this war, he said.
“In the future, I’m sure a similar situation will occur with drones: the concentration and effectiveness of electronic warfare will become so great that any contact between the aircraft and its pilot will become impossible.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
