#arms depleted and needing u.s. resupply

[vague-humanoid]

no worries

ah, found a more recent source

JERUSALEM (AP) — In Jerusalem’s Old City, nearly all souvenir shops are closed. In Haifa’s flea market, forlorn merchants polish their wares on empty streets. Airlines are canceling flights, businesses are failing and luxury hotels are half empty.

Nearly 11 months into the war with Hamas, Israel’s economy is struggling as the country’s leaders grind ahead with an offensive in Gaza that shows no signs of ending and threatens to escalate into a wider conflict.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tried to allay concerns by saying the economic damage is only temporary. But the bloodiest, most destructive war ever between Israel and Hamas has hurt thousands of small businesses and compromised international trust in an economy once thought of as an entrepreneurial dynamo. Some leading economists say a cease-fire is the best way to stop the damage.

“The economy right now is under huge uncertainty, and it’s related to the security situation — how long the war will go on, what the intensity will be and the question of whether there will be further escalation,” said Karnit Flug, Israel’s former central bank chief who is now the vice president of research at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.

[ultrajaphunter]

Ukraine Faces Ammunition Stocks Running ‘Desperately Low’ as Aid Falters

For all the high-tech weaponry on the battlefield, supplies of ammunition may be Ukraine's biggest problem in 2024

Published 12/16/23 07:00 AM ET|Updated 12/16/23 08:43 AM ET

James LaPorta

As President Volodymr Zelenskyy returns home with no deal for additional U.S. aid, he and his commanders face one shortfall that may matter as much as any: Ukraine is running desperately low on ammunition. 

As The Messenger reported last week, U.S. and Ukrainian officials concluded in a series of recent meetings that Ukraine’s stocks of artillery ammunition were badly depleted, and that the deficit could significantly hinder its war effort in the coming year. 

While the U.S. has supplied more than 2 million rounds of artillery ammunition to Ukraine,

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters that “the biggest problem that we are running up against is we don’t have enough money to backfill our own stocks, which means we don’t have enough to continue to supply Ukraine with what it needs because it is our weapons, our capabilities, our systems being pulled off our shelves and being shipped over to Ukraine.” 

She added: “And so if we can’t backfill, that’s going to also impact our own readiness, which means that’s going to impact what we can provide Ukraine.” 

And for all the high-end weapons systems the U.S. and Europe have provided Ukraine, the fact is that without a resupply of ammunition, Ukrainian forces won’t be able to keep fighting. 

Wanted: Millions of artillery shells

An old adage from the American Civil War holds true for this war: “A battery of field artillery is worth a thousand muskets.”

That was Union Gen. William Sherman, speaking more than 150 years ago, but modern-day commanders would agree. 

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For the Ukrainian Armed Forces, artillery is used primarily to keep the RuZZians from firing their weapons, break up large concentrations of RuZZian forces, strike high-value targets from a distance, and to support Ukrainian forces as they move to attack RuZZian defenses. 

The volume of ammunition used in the war has been staggering.

And for Ukraine, that’s part of the problem. 

Leaked classified documents found on Discord channels showed that in March, Ukraine had fired more than 952,000 155-millimeter artillery shells since RuZZia’s invasion, and that in a given week, Ukraine was firing between 2,700 and 3,500 shells.

The figures do not account for other artillery shells Ukraine uses. 

Ukraine’s defense minister Oleksiy Reznikov said in March the usage was even higher–an estimated 110,000 shells a month, per the Financial Times. 

“If we were not limited by the amount of available artillery shells, we could use the full ammunition set, which is 594,000 shells per month,” Reznikov said in a letter obtained by the Times. “According to our estimates, for the successful execution of battlefield tasks, the minimum need is at least 60 percent of the full ammunition set, or 356,400 shells per month.”

With the launch of a counteroffensive in June, Ukraine’s artillery shell use soared, with estimates putting the figure at 240,000 shells a month. 

Even when American military support was assured, those figures were substantially higher than U.S. monthly production rates of artillery shells.

Now, with that support in question, it’s not clear how the Ukrainians will continue to have the ammunition for an even fight against the RuZZians.

In the U.S. and Europe, ammo stocks running low

Earlier this year the U.S. began ramping up its own manufacturing of 155-millimeter rounds, surging production at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, with an aim to boost the Ukrainian supplies.

European Union members have also boosted production.

But officials in both the U.S. and EU say they have either depleted their ammunition stocks or soon will not have enough reserve to give to Ukraine. And given the state of the debate in Washington over aid for Ukraine, the American delivery of additional ammunition–or funds to purchase more–is in question.

“In some cases, Ukraine has been firing artillery at 12 times the rate of manufacture,” Alex Plitsas, a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council, told The Messenger. 

The Ukrainians suffer from another ammunition problem: many of the country’s artillery guns are old Soviet-era models that aren’t compatible with western shells.

“The U.S. does not manufacture shells for the Soviet caliber artillery weapons and U.S. shells won’t fit inside because it's a different caliber,” Plitsas said. “So that means the U.S. has to go out onto the market to find Soviet caliber rounds to purchase…it’s been very difficult.” 

Last week, in a small but profound example of this battlefield impact, a Ukrainian soldier interviewed by The Times of London said he had stopped shelling small RuZZian units because his unit was running out of U.S.-provided artillery ammunition and that shells from other parts of the world were duds. 

"When it's two or three soldiers, I'm not shooting any more; only when it's a critical situation, say, ten guys close to our infantry, we will work," Sergeant Taras "Fizruk" told the newspaper.

In RuZZia, the shells keep coming

RuZZia has no such problems–at least not yet.

NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg estimated that before the counteroffensive, RuZZian forces were firing roughly 3 times as many shells per day as the Ukrainians, according to The New York Times. 

The Times reported in September that despite western sanctions and export controls on RuZZia, the Kremlin had been able to bolster its munitions production by way of illicit smuggling networks.

The newspaper cited unnamed western officials saying RuZZia’s efforts could allow them to produce two million artillery shells a year–enough to continue fighting at current levels. 

Meanwhile, in November, South Korea’s spy agency said in a private briefing that more than one million North Korean artillery shells have been sent to RuZZia since August, according to the Associated Press. 

Might Ukraine get some ammunition relief?

There is some U.S. ammunition still in the pipeline from prior pledges for Ukraine, but as Singh and other U.S. officials have said, those won’t continue for long.

The EU announced plans to send 1 million artillery rounds to Ukraine by spring 2024, but Reuters reported this month that only 60,000 shells had been ordered. 

While it waits for more help from the rest of the world, Ukraine has–at the urging of the U.S. and its European allies–stepped up its domestic manufacturing of artillery shells.

It’s not clear when those shells might get to the battlefield.

[zatdummesmadchen]

Well deserved, really. If they are going to continue with invading Lebanon, things would undoubtedly go to shit for them.