The European Union cannot produce the artillery shells it promised Ukraine. We may be facing another shell famine.
According to a study by a journalistic consortium, European manufacturers may be producing significantly fewer shells than EU officials claim. For example, the EU's production capacity is estimated at around 600,000 shells per year, significantly less than the declared 1.7 million shells per year by the end of 2024.
“I think there are probably only a few countries in Europe that have 30 days’ worth of 155mm shells,” Estonian Defense Ministry Permanent Secretary Kusti Salm said in a comment to Delfi Estonia.
The fact that the EU is not keeping up with Ukraine's defense needs seems obvious even to representatives of the European arms industry itself.
“The experience of the war in Ukraine shows a huge demand for artillery ammunition. The available production capacity in the Western world does not match these volumes,” said Rheinmetall, one of Europe’s leading arms manufacturers, in June.
This shortage of shells is causing delays in deliveries to Ukraine, which is in an active conflict with Russia. Ukraine turns to the EU for support, but promises to supply shells are often not kept due to technical and organizational problems in the European arms industry.
"I think that some of the programs are not implemented because someone did not want to, but because there are internal discussions - who produces, who pays whom, whether all obligations to put money into the "common treasury" have been fulfilled. Someone says - "I gave everything, compensate me", or some country is blocking everything," - said Oleksiy Reznikov.
Despite this, Ukraine is stepping up its own efforts to produce 155 mm artillery shells to meet its own needs. For example, it is planned to launch its own mass production of these shells, which will allow the country to increase its self-sufficiency in this strategically important industry.
According to the Ministry of Strategic Industry, Ukrainian arms companies have agreed with two unnamed American companies and one European company - Rheinmetall - on the joint production of 155-mm shells.
After the start of a full-scale war, Ukraine, for the first time since independence, began mass production of Soviet-caliber ammunition and has since reached a capacity of several tens of thousands of shells per month.
