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Russian “shell hunger” in Ukraine, Prigoshin delivers grim warning to Shoigu
Yevgeny Prigozhin complained that Wagner fighters are denied the necessary ammo to be effective in battle. Alexander Khodakovsky of the pro-Russian Vostok Battalion reported that this situation is now similar to that of the entire Russian army.
These reports indicate not just a shell hunger but rather a ‘shell famine’. He also adds that the regular Russian army had to preserve ammo for the Vuhledar disaster to at least be able to sustain that offensive for 1 (!) day.
Roughly one month ago, I assessed that Russia would find it difficult to launch any major offensives in the spring due to a shortage of ammunition. It seems as if I might have been correct.
Russia’s shortage in ammunition in eastern Ukraine is getting so severe that its troops have been given ammunition that is not usable in any way. This includes shells, which were so rusty that they would belong on an old metal storage rather than a warzone. Shells have a normal shelf life of 25 to 30 years. If the storage conditions are optimal, maybe 35 to 40 years could be possible. It comes to no surprise for me that Russia would not store their ammo properly. The pictures I will share here will speak for themselves.
In this article, we will see Soviet/ Russian competence in a nutshell. The USSR wasted billions preparing for a war that never came to pass. They NEVER threw anything away, they simply stored all of it, a bit like a country sized hoarder. The Soviets never were competent at any type of long term maintenance. When the USSR Collapsed there was no money or manpower to properly maintain the storage. These depots were then subjected to the competent hands of corrupt officials who sold off a lot of parts and equipment/ ammo and left to deteriorate. Ammunition has to be kept in sealed containers at the appropriate temperature and protected from moisture.
Even then, just the aging of the powder and explosive material in the shells will degrade regardless.
Something of note about the russian ammo. I can say firsthand that those old soviet bunkers and concrete structures built by the military tend to leak if they aren’t maintained properly. If I had to make an educated guess where this ammo was stored, I would say exactly in these bunkers. Some of the nuclear bunkers will even be completely flooded by now.
In this article, we will see Soviet/ Russian competence in a nutshell. The USSR wasted billions preparing for a war that never came to pass. They NEVER threw anything away, they simply stored all of it, a bit like a country sized hoarder. The Soviets never were competent at any type of long term maintenance. When the USSR Collapsed there was no money or manpower to properly maintain the storage. These depots were then subjected to the competent hands of corrupt officials who sold off a lot of parts and equipment/ ammo and left to deteriorate. Ammunition has to be kept in sealed containers at the appropriate temperature and protected from moisture.
The second photo is a document detailing the transfer of ammunition to a russian unit on the 30th of December 2022.
Here is a translated piece to make you understand what we are looking at here. This is a report by a Russian soldier receiving this ammunition.
The list contains various 122mm rockets for BM-21 and 152mm artillery shells. The fun parts are columns #7 (units of measurement) and #8 (allocated quantity). For all items, the unit of measure is “thousand items”, but the numbers for the allocated quantity start from the second digit after the decimal sign. So for the first item — 122 mm high explosive rockets thy have allocated 0.021\*1000 or 21 rockets in total. For reference, BM-21 has 40 launch tubes. The rest of the list continues in the same spirit. See, tovarish, we are allocating to you thousands of rounds of ammo! Load all of the 0.021 thousand rounds and fight!
This is what I tend to visualize when I hear reports that Russia has thousands of tanks and IFVs in storage.
There’s only so many decades you can leave such machinery laying around without solid maintenance and upkeep before it just becomes… well, this. It comes to as no surprise to me that Russian shelling has decreased so substantially over the past several months. But as far as I know Russia and their lack of competent maintenance, the ordnance officer in charge may have reacted to seeing this mess in this kind of fashion:
he VChK-OGPU Telegram channel has posted photos of some of the ammunition that it says Russian regular forces have been issued.
This suggests that the shortage isn’t just confined to ‘independent’ mercenary or militia groups but also affects the army itself. This indicates that the shell shortage is not just confined to some parts of the front, but rather that we could be looking a “global shell shortage” across the entire Russian armed forces. However, this information is still quite fresh, so we shouldn’t jump to conclusions just yet. If these shell shortages are a bigger issues across the entire frontline, then the light at the end of the tunnel may indeed have gotten a lot brighter as we head towards spring/summer.
To be fair, most of the poor state of the Russian military is unknown to everyone, including the Russians themselves.
Corruption in the Russian military is so bad that all kinds of people at all levels steal and divert funds intended to maintain and replace supplies, so that only some fraction of the money spent goes into actually getting new supplies. Someone can pretend to buy a crate of "new" ammo, pocket the money, and just deliver a crate of old existing ammo instead.
Few have the incentive of uncovering the actual extent of corruption.
In fact, many have the incentive to cover it up as much as possible to avoid their own fraud being exposed. Not just Western military experts, but Putin himself likely has no idea what the true situation is with respect to the state of supplies and equipment in the Russian military. The decline of quality and amounts of ammo has been ongoing for some time now and it’s not UA propaganda it is truth because there’s a lot of sources including pows, Prigozhin himself, intercepted comms, etc. Ru obviously isn’t able to sustain the rate of ammo production needed for such a huge front.
Especially for offensive operations, UA, on the other hand, has a steady supply of every ammo type it needs (there’s shortages also, but they are not as systemic or as global as those of Russia)
While it is possible to defend with an artillery shortage. Your losses are higher. With enough canon-fodder and entrenchments, a tactical defense seems still possible. I don’t think most armies know yet how to go on offensive with an artillery shortage. Artillery suppresses, kills, and sometimes conceals, which is allowing troops to advance into assault positions.
“You will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics.” — General Dwight D. Eisenhower, USA
Russia’s various military institutions are falling apart
But Putin has been content with “frozen wars” for 2 decades, and that’s his aim here. Exert influence on foreign politics to support a ceasefire, he might very well get his frozen war in 2024 if his influence operations work. We cannot allow this evil plan to succeed. These cases of inadequate quality ammunition are including category 2 and 3 (with defects or generally unsuitable for combat use)”. Russia’s is diggin deep into their storage so it is more important than ever to increase pressure on their logistics and on their economy by any means possible.
We can see from these pictures that the ammunition is not just unusable but probably unsafe to use. This is very likely due to the bad conditions in which it was stored.
Originally, I thought the low amount of ammo for Wagner was meant to punish Prigoshin.
It also sure was for some time. But these picture that we saw here, are actual evidence that the ammo of Russian forces is really on the verge of running so low that Russia cannot go on the offensive and will barely be able to remain on the defensive. No sane person in the military (yes, even in Russia’s military) would send such ammo. Not unless anything else would be available.
The rest here :
Russia’s ruinous war in Ukraine heads into a decisive phase as Russian logistics get more strained, as its industry must prove now that it…
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