In the fight against Russia, Ukraine is asking for more Western supplies of ammunition. However, allies are facing a number of problems, with only a third of the desired amount currently looking realistic – and even that will take months.

Even if NATO countries wanted to, they could not supply Ukraine with a million rounds, because the West’s ammunition stocks are starting to run out. In Germany alone, there is a 20-30 billion-euro-shortage of ammunition, a significant shortfall confirmed recently by Defence Minister Boris Pistorius. At the same time, the minister made it clear that Germany would not give up on supplying ammunition to Ukraine in addition to the weapons systems.

However, this will not be an easy task, and they will certainly not be able to produce enough to meet Ukraine’s demands until the summer.

In February, the Defence Ministry ordered 300,000 rounds for the „Gepard” anti-aircraft tank, one of the weapons systems that Germany supplied to Ukraine. However, arms manufacturer Rheinmetall does not expect to deliver the ammunition until the summer.

The core of the problem is that the arms industry has been steadily reducing its production capacity in recent years, experts say. „There was simply no longer a significant market for large calibre weapons,” pointed out Rafael Loss, an expert at the think-tank European Council on Foreign Relations. The raw materials for ammunition are already very difficult to obtain, and the next period will see an even smaller supply.

The situation is difficult for both simple projectiles and more complex ammunition, for example, ammunition that breaks up and scatters at a certain height or projectiles with GPS transmitters. These can be targeted via satellite link with an accuracy of a few metres. But the production is more complicated and therefore more time-consuming, not to mention the high production costs,

the expert explained in the interview.

The countries that are supporting Ukraine in the war with arms and ammunition are now finding themselves in a more difficult situation every day and having to make unpleasant choices. The Ukrainian demand for one million rounds of ammunition is currently only a dream, experts say, with around 300,000 rounds at best being realistic, but even that will take time to deliver.

This, however, does not bother these states, and they are apparently willing to accept a significant weakening of their own defence forces in exchange for sending their weapons to Ukraine. In other words, they send arms and ammunition at the cost of the security of their own citizens. V4NA recently reported that the UK’s ammunition stockpiles are at dangerously low levels after the country handed supplies over to Ukraine, the British Defence Commission has pointed out in a recent report.

“It is clear that the UK and its NATO allies have allowed ammunition stocks to fall to dangerously low levels,” reads the document, which also warns that Britain faces significant supply problems when it comes to ammunition. This means that it could take more than a decade for the country to replenish its arsenal after sending billions of dollars worth of military equipment to Ukraine.

However, the ammunition shortage is not only a problem in the UK, as it was recently revealed that in the US weapons industry, the normal production level of artillery rounds for the 155 millimetre howitzer is about 30,000 rounds per year in peacetime, but this amount is used up in Ukraine in around two weeks. Not only the US, but Europe is also running out of weapons. “The military stocks of most [European NATO] member states have been, I wouldn’t say exhausted, but depleted in a high proportion, because we have been providing a lot of capacity to the Ukrainians,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, said in September.