Russia and Ukraine are running out of munitions – but one has a significant advantage | Sean Bell
Despite Russia having significantly greater firepower, its illegal invasion of Ukraine has not gone according to plan.
Although Ukraine was not a member of NATO, the West responded to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s appeal for help with a mass of hi-tech weapons and ammunition.
However, following nearly two years of high-intensity conflict, both sides are running out of munitions.
Ukraine-Russia war – latest updates
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Zelenskyy: ‘Evil will be defeated’
Inspired by Ukraine’s initial successes at liberating 12,000 sq km of occupied Kharkiv in September 2022, the West provided a huge volume of military supplies to support Mr Zelenskyy’s spring offensive.
However, despite months of intensive fighting, the frontlines have not moved significantly, and both sides need more firepower to prevail.
No nation holds sufficient war stocks of ammunition to meet the demands of such a high-tempo war of attrition. Russia has always stockpiled basic weapons and is believed to have started the war with several million artillery shells – however, even these stocks are now running low.
Ukraine could not match Russia’s weapons stockpiles, but Western support focused on hi-tech weapons that provided Ukraine with precision strike capability.
But these Western weapons came from existing stockpiles, and no nation has the luxury of holding more weapons than it needs. Because of this, every weapon donated to Ukraine increased the national security risk for the donor nation.
Read more:
Ukrainian drones ‘shot down over Crimea’
Analysis: Deadly attacks are bad omens for 2024
What went wrong for Ukraine in 2023?
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Ukraine: What you missed in 2023
By donating “older stocks” of weapons, the West judged that the cost and risk implications were manageable, but the supply was – inevitably – limited.
To address the firepower shortfall, Russia has turned to North Korea to supply ballistic missiles and one million artillery shells, and repeat orders can be expected.
Iran is happy to supply drones and larger missiles, which might not be as capable or effective as their Western counterparts, but crucially they are available now. And Russia has a huge defence industrial base which has shifted on to a war footing, funded by huge oil revenues. Russia is rearming, and fast.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Russian hypersonic ballistic missile attack
In contrast, Ukraine has a fledgling industrial base which is very vulnerable to Russian missile attacks – it takes months to build manufacturing capability, and a single strike by Russia to destroy it. Ukraine hopes to build one million drones this coming year, but it cannot match Russia’s defence industry’s capacity or capability, and it does not have the weapons to threaten Russia’s industrial base.
Ukraine’s GDP is also a fraction of the size of Russia’s – £157bn versus nearly £1.6trn – so it cannot compete with Russia’s global purchasing power or national defence industrial capability.
So where does that leave Ukraine? Without considerable and enduring Western military support, it is destined to become overwhelmed – eventually – by Russia’s considerably greater ability to rearm.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Russian airstrikes target Kyiv
Denuded Western stockpiles cannot meet Ukraine’s needs, but the West does have considerably greater capacity to mobilise its defence industrial base if it chooses to do so.
Earlier last year, the West promised Ukraine it would provide a million rounds of artillery by March 2024. Although Western industry has the capacity to respond, this promise will not be kept.
Western political support for Ukraine remains robust, but this intent has yet to be matched by the requisite collective financial commitment.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Moment Kyiv building explodes
Western defence planning assumed that high-intensity enduring wars were unlikely to be a near-term issue, and that technology would provide it with an asymmetric military advantage.
However, specialist weapons are expensive and can only be procured in relatively small numbers. And they cannot be easily replaced as the production lines only remain open until orders are fulfilled, and the technology is rapidly obsolete.
Mr Zelenskyy has always claimed that he is fighting Russia on behalf of the West, without it having to commit combatants. But Ukraine cannot prevail without military (and financial) help.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Proposal after prisoner exchange
An emboldened Putin might not be a threat beyond Ukraine’s shores in the very near term, but a victory in Ukraine would inevitably have long-term consequences. And what would China – with its eye on Taiwan – make of such a victory?
The Ukraine war has exposed some critical shortcomings of the West’s wartime assumptions. Unless it commits to a coordinated long-term strategy to generate the weapons Ukraine needs – and urgently – it will hand Putin the victory he craves.
World
‘Almost like a game of target practice’: British surgeon says IDF shooting Gazans at aid points
A British surgeon who recently returned from Gaza has told Sky News that there is “profound malnutrition” among the population – and claims IDF soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “like a game of target practice”.
Dr Nick Maynard spent four weeks working inside Nasser Hospital, where a lack of food has left medics struggling to treat children and toddlers.
The conditions inside the hospital, in the south of the Strip, have been documented in a Sky News report.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Malnourished girl: ‘The war changed me’
Dr Maynard told The World with Yalda Hakim: “I met several doctors who had cartons of formula feed in their luggage – and they were all confiscated by the Israeli border guards. Nothing else got confiscated, just the formula feed.
“There were four premature babies who died during the first two weeks when I was in Nasser Hospital – and there will be many, many more deaths until the Israelis allow proper food to get in there.”
Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
In other developments:
• Israel and the US have recalled their teams from Gaza ceasefire talks
• US envoy Steve Witkoff has accused Hamas “of failing to act in good faith”
• France has announced that it will recognise the state of Palestine
• An influential group of MPs is calling on the UK to “immediately” do the same
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘Starvation used as a weapon’
‘They were shells’
Dr Nick Maynard has been going to Gaza for the past 15 years – and this is his third visit to the territory since the war began.
The British surgeon added that virtually all of the kids in the paediatric unit of Nasser Hospital are being fed with sugar water.
“They’ve got a small amount of formula feed for very small babies, but not enough,” he warned.
Dr Maynard said the lack of aid has also had a huge impact on his colleagues.
“I saw people I’d known for years and I didn’t recognise some of them,” he added. “Two colleagues had lost 20kg and 30kg respectively. They were shells, they’re all hungry.
“They’re going to work every day, then going home to their tents where they have no food.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Ex-Gaza aid worker claims personnel shot at Palestinians
IDF ‘shooting Gazans at aid points’
Elsewhere in the interview, Dr Maynard claimed Israeli soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “almost like a game of target practice”.
He has operated on boys as young as 11 who had been “shot at food distribution points” run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
“They had gone to get food for their starving families and they were shot,” he said.
“I operated on one 12-year-old boy who died on the operating table because his injuries were so severe.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open
Dr Maynard continued: “What was even more distressing was the pattern of injuries that we saw, the clustering of injuries to particular body parts on certain days.
“One day they’d be coming in predominately with gunshot wounds to the head or the neck, another day to the abdomen.
“Twelve days ago, four young teenage boys came in, all of whom had been shot in the testicles and deliberately so.
“The clustering was far too obvious to be accidental, and it seemed to us like this was almost like a game of target practice.
“I would never have believed this possible unless I’d witnessed this with my own eyes.”
Palestinians brought to Nasser Hospital after being shot by Israeli forces, according to hospital officials and eyewitnesses. Pic: AP
Sky News has contacted the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
An IDF spokesperson previously told Sky News it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.
“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.
Read more:
Medics at Nasser hospital struggle to feed children
Gaza food situation ‘worst its ever been’
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Israeli military show aid waiting inside Gaza
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been managing the supply of aid to Gaza since Israel lifted an 11-week blockade in May.
It has four aid distribution sites, all of which are located in Israeli military zones, with journalists prohibited from entering.
More than 1,000 people have been reported killed while trying to receive food aid since the GHF took over, according to the UN.
UNRWA, its relief agency for Gaza, has heavily criticised the scheme.
Commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said: “The so-called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill.”
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Just a fraction of the aid trucks needed are making it into the enclave, the UN has said, while multiple aid groups and the World Health Organisation have warned Gazans are facing “mass starvation”.
Mr Lazzarini quoted a colleague on Thursday and said malnourished Palestinians in the Gaza “are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses”.
Eleven Thai civilians and a soldier have been killed in clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, officials have said, as long-standing tensions in disputed border areas boiled over into open conflict.
Among those killed was an eight-year-old boy, the army said in a statement.
It said most casualties occurred in Si Sa Ket province, where six people were killed after shots were fired at a fuel station.
Smoke and fire in the Kantharalak district in Thailand amid clashes between Thailand and Cambodia. Pic: Army Region 2 via Facebook/Reuters
Another 14 people have been injured in three Thai border provinces.
Thailand’s health minister Somsak Thepsuthin confirmed the fatalities to reporters, adding Cambodia’s actions, including an attack on a hospital, should be considered war crimes.
Both countries accuse one another of starting the military clashes and have downgraded their diplomatic relations in the rapidly escalating dispute. Thailand has also sealed all land border crossings with Cambodia.
Early on Thursday, a Thai F-16 fighter jet bombed targets in Cambodia, according to Thailand’s army.
“We have used air power against military targets as planned,” Thai army deputy spokesperson Richa Suksuwanon said.
Cambodia’s defence ministry said Thai jets had dropped bombs on a road near the ancient Preah Vihear temple, saying it “strongly condemns the reckless and brutal military aggression of the Kingdom of Thailand against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cambodia”.
What has caused Thailand-Cambodia border clashes?
Thai people who fled clashes take shelter in Surin province. Pic: AP
Fighting has taken place in disputed border areas
‘Civilian areas targeted’
Clashes are ongoing in at least six areas along the border, the Thai defence ministry said.
Thailand’s foreign ministry said Cambodian troops fired “heavy artillery” on a Thai military base on Thursday morning and also targeted civilian areas, including a hospital.
“The Royal Thai Government is prepared to intensify our self-defence measures if Cambodia persists in its armed attack and violations upon Thailand’s sovereignty,” the ministry said in a statement.
A livestream video from Thailand’s side showed people, including children and the elderly, running from their homes and hiding in a concrete bunker as explosions sounded.
The clash happened in an area where the ancient Prasat Ta Muen Thom temple stands along the border between Thailand’s Surin province and Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province.
Thai people who fled clashes in Surin province, northeastern Thailand. Pic: AP
‘Conflict not spreading’
Thailand’s acting premier said fighting must first stop before peace talks can start.
Caretaker Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters there had been no declaration of war and conflict was not spreading into more provinces.
He said Cambodia had fired heavy weapons into Thailand without any specific targets, resulting in civilian deaths.
Earlier on Thursday, Cambodia downgraded diplomatic relations with Thailand to their lowest level, expelled the Thai ambassador and recalled all Cambodian staff from its embassy in Bangkok.
The day before, its neighbour withdrew its ambassador and expelled the top Cambodian diplomat in protest after five Thai soldiers were wounded in a land mine blast, one of whom lost part of a leg.
A week earlier, a land mine in a different contested area exploded and wounded three Thai soldiers, including one who lost a foot.
Relations between the southeast Asian neighbours have collapsed after a Cambodian soldier was killed in an armed confrontation in a disputed border area in May.
Read more on Sky News:
UK’s ‘tough choices’
‘Man-made starvation’ in Gaza
Man ‘scarred’ by Trump max security prison
Nationalist passions on both sides have further inflamed the situation, and Thailand’s prime minister was suspended earlier this month as an investigation was opened into possible ethics violations over her handling of the border dispute.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Border disputes are longstanding issues that have caused periodic tensions between the countries. The most prominent and violent conflicts have been around the 1,000-year-old Preah Vihear temple.
In 1962, the International Court of Justice recognised Cambodian sovereignty over the temple area.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike