Despite Western weapons, Ukraine is outgunned in the east
- Much-hyped deliveries of military aid have not kept pace with the defenders’ needs, and they are forced to conserve ammunition as Moscow’s forces pummel them
- One reason is that defence firms are not turning out arms fast enough, as they shift from peacetime production to wartime needs
Holed up in a bombed-out house in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian troops keep a careful accounting of their ammunition, using a door as a sort of ledger. Scrawled in chalk on the door are figures for mortar shells, smoke shells, shrapnel shells, flares.
Despite the heavy influx of weapons from the West, Ukrainian forces are outgunned by the Russians in the battle for the eastern Donbas region, where the fighting is largely being carried out by way of artillery exchanges.
While the Russians can keep up heavy, continuous fire for hours at a time, the defenders cannot match the enemy in either weapons or ammunition and must use their ammo more judiciously.
At the outpost in eastern Ukraine, dozens and dozens of mortar shells are stacked up. But the troops’ commander, Mykhailo Strebizh, who goes by the nom de guerre Gaiduk, lamented that if his fighters were to come under an intense artillery barrage, their cache would, at best, amount to only about four hours’ worth of return fire.
Ukrainian authorities say the West’s much-ballyhooed support for the country is not sufficient and is not arriving on the battlefield fast enough for this grinding and highly lethal phase of the war.
While Russia has kept quiet about its war casualties, Ukrainian authorities say up to 200 of their soldiers are dying each day. Russian forces are gaining ground slowly in the east, but experts say they are taking heavy losses.