The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has been fighting from the end of February to the end of November, and both sides have been fighting for about 9 months. For both Russia and Ukraine, this war has encountered a serious obstacle to the ongoing, that is, insufficient ammunition.
The artillery shells consumed on the battlefield of Russia and Ukraine
From the beginning of the Russian-Ukraine conflict to the end of November, the United States' aid to Ukraine reached about 90,000 tons of artillery shells (mainly 155mm howitzers). This is equivalent to Ukraine having to fire an average of 10,000 tons of shells per month, and more than 300 tons per day. When the war is fierce, Ukraine will have to shoot tens of thousands of shells a day, and this number will be small, and it will take three trains to pull it.
Russia also fired a lot of shells. Commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Department Valeri Zalugine claimed in June that the Russian army would shoot more than 40,000 shells on the battlefield every day. Even after that, the war between Russia and Ukraine was relatively slow, Russia fired thousands of shells every day. The number of
is more than that of Ukraine, which also indirectly shows the cruelty of Russia and Ukraine. Now the entire line of fire has become a "slaughterhouse".
In addition, behind the shells used by Russia and Ukraine, we also need to consider one force, that is NATO . Ukraine itself does not have much weapon stock. Now the shells fired by Ukraine on the battlefield are basically provided by NATO. So when Ukraine consumes shells depends on when NATO ends its military support for Ukraine. In terms of NATO's ammunition stock, it is not surprising that this day will come at any time. From the end of November to the beginning of December, several countries were claiming that they had insufficient ammunition inventory. Even the United States has this problem. The inventory of various missiles, and shells has reached the "cordon line".
Like the US "War Zone" website published an article in November 2022 saying that has been provided with more than 1 million shells to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian-Ukraine conflict, which has seriously affected the US military's own inventory. , and there are many problems with the United States' ability to quickly replenish ammunition inventory. If these problems are not solved, it will take several years for the US military to make up for the lost inventory.
In addition, this article also mentioned two things worth noting. The first is that the Pentagon declared that "it will not put its strategic reserves under threat." The second is that the article points out that simple shells can be purchased from other friendly countries, such as South Korea.
Military aid provided by the United States
In the first thing that shows that the United States may stop military aid to Ukraine. First of all, we need to determine one thing first, that is why the United States is willing to provide shells for Ukraine. There is no doubt that the reason why the United States did this was to make Ukraine resist Russia and thus achieve the goal of weakening Russia.
Of course, from a deeper perspective of international politics, the United States has also helped Ukraine to suck blood on EU , but only considering it from the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, the purpose of the United States is to make Russia "continuously bleeding."
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict ended in November, and the United States can be said to have achieved this goal to a large extent. Russia now has a serious inflation in . After the economic ties with Western Europe, the production costs of various industrial products have increased significantly.
. What’s more serious is that Russia’s military prestige is not as important as before the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Before the Russian-Ukrainian conflict began, everyone believed that Russia was the top three military forces in the world, and its conventional military forces were only weaker than the United States or comparable to China. But now the mainstream view on the Internet has become that Russia's conventional military power is far weaker than China, and it is even more radical to compare Russia with Britain and France.
Russia is now able to maintain its international status because of its strong military power. Now everyone thinks that Russia's military power has become weaker, so there will be more small actions against Russia. Friends who are interested in international politics should remember that Russia sent troops to Kazakhstan before the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
The cause of this incident was that a color revolution occurred within Kazakhstan, and some people in China were trying to overthrow the current pro-Russian Kazakh government. If Russia's military power is not deterrent enough, such things are likely to increase in the future, and Russia's "sphere of influence" will gradually shrink in the future.
So from the perspective of weakening Russia, the United States has achieved great results in supporting Ukrainian shells. If the United States had a further intention and hoped to use some means to disintegrate Russia like the Soviet Union, this kind of aid might last for several years. But if the United States does not have this idea and does not want to force Russia into a hurry, this kind of aid will stop at most in half a year, and it may even be within 1 to 2 months.
National Position
In the second thing, it is actually a very bad signal, both for the United States and the countries that are being sought for ammunition. Because the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has been fought until now, providing shells for Russia or Ukraine is no longer an economic matter, but a political account.
provides Ukraine with shells, which means taking sides with NATO. Then, when this country interacts with Russia and NATO at the same time, it will lose its strategic flexibility. Anyone with a little strategic vision will see the risks inside and will be resistant to such things.
If the United States really insists on letting some countries that are not in NATO but are more pro-American, it will take some means to provide Ukraine. This method may be mandatory or exchange of interests. But no matter what, it is not good for the United States to control these "allies" that are not in the NATO system.
For countries selling shells, the United States is planning to exchange interests. Like Japan, if the United States promises to "release" Japan's military, Japan will be willing to provide Ukraine with shells. But if the United States uses compulsive means, it will be quite uncomfortable for countries selling shells. It is nothing more than the difference between losing strategic flexibility by oneself or losing strategic flexibility by being "beat up" by the United States.
