It’s been a long day, so I’m going to try to keep tonight’s update on the brief side.
Have I mentioned that Mike Johnson sent the House of Representatives home for a two week vacation? That we’re eight days away from the first four federal agencies shutting down and fifteen days away from the rest of the federal government shutting down?
Here’s the price being paid:
We hear about shell hunger, but it can be hard to understand how that translates to the fate of day-to-day operations on the battlefield. I spoke to the people on the ground, for @KyivIndependent. Spoiler: It's bad and getting worse.https://t.co/822gH0pPMc
— Francis Farrell (@francisjfarrell) February 22, 2024
From The Kyiv Independent: (emphasis mine)
DONETSK OBLAST – Hiding beneath sparse winter cover in a crude, muddy ditch, a great steel monster lies in wait for an opportunity to attack.
Adorned on either side with painted plus signs, the gun’s huge barrel looks up at the sky over the Bakhmut front line, across which thousands of shells, rockets, missiles, and drones fly back and forth each day.
The weapon, serving in the hands of Ukraine’s legendary 93rd Mechanized Brigade is a U.S.-built M109 self-propelled howitzer, better known as the Paladin.
Over winter, Russian forces have been on the offensive in the area, pushing past the ruined Bakhmut towards the Ukrainian stronghold of Chasiv Yar.
On this day in early February, despite the near-constant sounds of fighting nearby, the Paladin stays silent.
Assaults on Ukrainian positions are carried out on a daily basis, but the shells lined up in the gun’s storage racks are only used when absolutely necessary.
Bit by bit as Russia’s full-scale war progressed, Western howitzers like the Paladin, which shoot the 155mm shells standard to all NATO armies, have largely replaced Ukraine’s legacy Soviet-era artillery pieces.
Kyiv has received hundreds of 155mm howitzers to deploy along an active front line stretching over 1,200 kilometers across the country.
With their overall increased accuracy compared to Russian artillery pieces, the weapons have been crucial in keeping Ukraine in the fight against an enemy with a marked ammunition advantage.
Now, despite having plenty of guns themselves, Ukraine is running out of shells, and the situation is slowly growing desperate.
As the transition toward NATO-standard artillery progressed, Ukraine’s military relied largely on shells from U.S. stocks, boosted by those bought from outside the alliance, particularly from South Korea.
Seeing the urgent need, European countries have moved to scale up production in their own countries, but have been widely criticized for the time taken to do so.
With the blockade by Republicans of U.S. military aid funding for Ukraine since late last year, the lack of new deliveries is sorely felt on the battlefield.
As both Washington and Kyiv have noted, one of the main reasons for recent Russian success in taking the city of Avdiivka, Moscow’s first major territorial gains since May last year, has been Ukraine’s shortage of artillery ammunition.
The Kyiv Independent spoke to 155mm artillery commanders in two separate brigades fighting in Donetsk Oblast to understand how shell hunger had begun to impact the day-to-day flow of the battlefield.
Across Ukraine’s vast land forces, with different levels of intensity in different sectors of the front line, it can often be difficult to visualize how shell hunger affects the work of Ukrainian forces on a tactical level.
By now, said 36-year-old Paladin crew commander Vitalii “Skyba,” whose last name is not disclosed as per the rules of the unit, the difference between Ukraine’s and Russia’s ammunition availability is acutely felt.
“It feels like we shoot only when we see a target, while their guns are firing 24/7, they dismantle whole villages just for fun,” he said.
“We can’t work like that, we often get only three shells to hit a target and the expectation is that that will be enough, whereas they can easily fire 20 shells at one target.”
Sometimes, Skyba added, targets that would normally be obvious choices to be engaged with artillery are left alone because of the need to be frugal.
“If they spot five enemy soldiers standing together, that’s not always enough to give the order to fire these days,” he said.
“Our command does its best to get us to support our infantry. It would be great if we could work non-stop like the Russians, but we can’t.”
Twenty kilometers south of Chasiv Yar, the Kyiv Independent also spoke with Roman Holodivskyi, battery commander in the 43rd Artillery Brigade, which has divisions deployed across the front line and transitioned completely from Soviet-era Pion howitzers to German-made PzH2000 self-propelled guns.
Holodivskyi, whose seniority provides a wider view on the ammunition situation that crew commanders like Skyba may lack, also reported receiving limits on how many shells can be used on a target.
“Last time I commanded a fire mission personally, we saw an enemy assault group, it was the perfect distance to work. I asked for permission to engage from my senior commander, and also asked for the maximum expenditure,” he said.
“They gave me permission to fire five shells. That’s three to dial in, and two to actually damage. If we had been allowed 10 shells for that large enemy grouping, it would have been obliterated, but like that, we only managed to give them a bite.”
Even while working as miserly as possible, Ukrainian howitzers’ current rate of fire is unsustainable.
When 155mm shells were more available, Holodivskyi’s unit saved up a reserve, which he is now forced to begin using up.
“Now, the stores that we saved up are only half-full, and they deliver a lot fewer and a lot less often,” he said.
Much more at the link!
As I have repeatedly said, if this war is lost it will not be lost by the Ukrainians, nor will it be lost in the Donbas or Kherson or Zaporizhzhia. Rather, it will be lost in Washington, DC, in Berlin, and in other EU and NATO member states’ capitols.
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
War for Ukraine Day 729: Shell Hunger Will Become a Munitions FaminePost + Comments (21)
