In a letter obtained by the Financial Times, Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov appealed to his counterparts in the 27 member states on March 3 to provide Kyiv with 250,000 artillery shells a month to ease a critical shortage that limits the country's progress on the battlefield.
Reznikov writes that his country’s forces are "only firing a fifth of the rounds they could" because of a lack of supplies. The request far exceeds the help the EU is discussing sending.
Reznikov writes that artillery plays a “crucial role in eliminating the enemy’s military power.” On average, Ukraine was firing 110,000 155mm-calibre shells a month, he says — a quarter of the amount used by Russia.
"Ammunition availability might be the single most important factor that determines the course of the war in 2023, and that will depend on foreign stockpiles and production," U.S. defense experts Michael Kofman and Rob Lee wrote in December for the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
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