Ukrainian gunners for the first time in months appear to have had enough artillery shells to take on big Russian ground attacks, but supplies are still limited and long-promised Western ammunition deliveries are only just starting to show up at the front.
Russian armored columns attacking during May struck Ukrainian defenses supported by gunners with shells available to shoot back – as had widely not been the case for some time – on battlefields across the front, a Kyiv Post review of open-source combat data found.
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Ukrainian artillerymen in the Kharkiv, Donbas and Zaporizhzhia sectors appeared to be dropping shell concentrations onto Russian tanks and armored personnel vehicles as attack columns drove into mine fields or constricted locations, battlefield accounts from both sides of the fighting, and combat video reviewed by Kyiv Post showed.
Massive bombardments lasting hours, a preferred Russian tactic since invading Ukraine in February 2022, were not visibly attempted by Ukrainian forces during the recent attacks.
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The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) first ran short of artillery ammunition in April 2022 and since then has suffered chronic shell shortages.
By late 2023 the shortages were crippling and by most accounts, Russian guns were outshooting Ukrainian by five to one.
Video published by the AFU on Tuesday showed a Russian armored assault against the 47th Mechanized Brigade from the Avdiivka sector brought to a halt following accurate artillery strikes, followed by First Person View (FPV) kamikaze drones zeroing in on stopped tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to set them on fire. A Kyiv Post review geo-located the images to farmland west of the Donbas city of Avdiivka.
AFU video reviewed by Kyiv Post from battlegrounds around the Donbas villages Novobakhmutovka and Terni showed similar Ukrainian tactics using short concentrations of shells, sometimes cluster munitions, followed by FPV strikes against halted and usually abandoned Russian vehicles. Retreating Russian infantry and crew were shown to be hunted down by drones. Information feeds from both AFU regular army and territorial defense units reported the tactic.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a May 16 meeting with journalists, said the AFU’s critical shell shortages had ended, or at least were nearly resolved.
“For the first time in the years of the war, none of the (combat) brigades complain that there are no artillery projectiles. And this has been the case for the past two months,” Zelensky said.
Ukrainian military journalist Yury Butusov in a March 17 editorial criticized Zelensky for, he said, misleading the Ukrainian public about shell shortages.
Artillery ammunition is available in quantities sufficient to crush all attacks and launch effective offensives at no location on the front, he said.
“The Supreme Commander (Zelensky) was deliberately misled by someone from his inner circle, and he repeats someone’s words without orienting himself in the real situation. Therefore, I am informing Volodymyr Zelenskyi what is really happening. First, the brigades do not complain (about ammunition shortages) because, apart from problems with the commanders (of those officers who complain) these complaints give nothing to the brigade commanders,” Butusov said.Specialized precision-guided, long-range shells suitable for counter-battery work are even more critically short, and even in the high-priority Kharkiv sector, gunners working an individual piece can receive as little as 10-20 shells for a day of intense battle, he said.
Western efforts to get Ukraine substantial quantities of ammunition have moved at a molasses pace for more than two years because of in-fighting in the EU over which country should get contracts to produce the ammunition, a four-month full-stop halt to all US military aid to Ukraine because of Congressional in-fighting, the Israel-Hamas War’s redirection of US ammunition reserve supplies from Ukraine to Israel, and delays in gearing-up shell production capacity in Europe and North America.
Zelensky said Europe’s main plan to get Ukraine more shells in the shorter term, a Czech-led initiative to pool funds and buy Ukraine artillery shells on international markets, was moving forward.
President of the Czech Republic Peter Pavel in early May comments, said Ukraine will likely receive the first 180,000 shells purchased by EU states in June. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala in March statements, said first deliveries would take place in April. The current expected delivery date is sometime in June, the Ukrainian Defense Express magazine reported on Tuesday.
Ukrainian gunners field hundreds of guns, mortars and howitzers firing the Soviet-standard 82mm, 122mm, 152mm and 203mm calibers; and hundreds more firing the NATO-standard 60mm, 81mm, 105mm and 155mm calibers. All calibers have been short or critically short since the Fall of 2023.
The Czech initiative initially should deliver Ukraine 500,000 155mm shells and 300,000 122mm shells, Prague officials have said.
Russian battlefield accounts reporting on battles this week have described an AFU now possessing enough artillery ammunition for at least local battles – particularly the workhorse 155mm shell.
Russian milblogger Evgeniy Balitskiy, reporting from the southern Zaporizhzhia sector on May 20, described Ukrainian fires against Kremlin troops attacking near the town Vasylivka said: “Yes, they (Ukrainian artillery) have been hitting us with everything they have, 155mm shells, there are cluster munitions flying everywhere. FPV drones are flying… Plus at 5:30 [a.m.] they fired smoke shells to make a smoke screen, which is something we don’t do…Vasylivka hasn’t seen a bombardment this intense in a long time.”
Russian “military correspondent” Simon Pegov reported heavy Ukrainian artillery fire in his War Gonzo Telegram channel on Tuesday. Ukrainian forces, using shells and FPV drones in tandem, have halted recent ground attacks and now are making supplying forward troops and evacuating Russian wounded almost impossible, he said.
“Necessary and full-fledged rotations of personnel, saturation of (further Russian advance into) occupied territories with troops and guns after almost two weeks of intense fighting – sometimes become impossible – due to massive artillery fire and the saturation of the front with enemy FPV drones...If at the beginning of the offensive operation (against Kharkiv) there was relative parity in these indicators (manpower, artillery, drones), now the numerical superiority – and this is obvious to everyone at the front – is on the enemy’s side,” Pegov wrote in part.
Agil Rustamzade, an Azerbaijan military analyst closely tracking the Russo-Ukrainian War, in Monday comments to the UkrLife news stream platform, predicted increasing Ukrainian combat firepower thanks to rising supplies of artillery ammunition will likely continue.
“We are seeing an increase in the firepower available to the Ukrainian army. At the same time, we are seeing a reduction in the attack capacities of the Russian army...every day the firepower of the Ukrainian army is growing. This is ammunition, this is artillery, and this is drones. Every day we can see how Russian offensive capacity is melting away. This is taking place because the Ukrainian army is moving to a high level of destructive capacity,” Rustamzade said.
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