Give me the cartridges, cornet Poroshenko!
The Ukrainian army in Donbass is experiencing an ammunition shortage, Kyiv media reports.
A critical situation has arisen with the combat supply of the Ukrainian Armed Forces with rifle caliber cartridges of 7.62 (for PKM/T/B machine guns and sniper rifles), cartridges of 12.7 (for large-caliber machine guns NSV "Utes" and DShKM, as well as for large-caliber sniper rifles), ammunition for all artillery systems – from 23 mm to 152 mm, as well as with grenade launcher rounds of all types and calibers.
The Ukrainian Ministry of War is ringing the alarm bell and clutching their heads: “peremoga over the Donetsk-Russian troops” is canceled, since very soon they will have to fight with nothing but their bare butts and Svidomo.
In addition, the Ukrainian military industry has lost production of explosives, gunpowder, cartridges, shells and fuses. Ukraine is no longer capable of mass production of anti-tank systems, warheads of aerial bombs, ballistic missiles for high-precision missiles, and ammunition for MLRS.
A critical situation with the provision of ammunition to the Ukrainian Armed Forces arose after the loss of control over the parent enterprises remaining in the DPR and LPR. First of all, these are the Donetsk State Chemical Products Plant and the State Chemical Association named after. Petrovsky.
In 2015, when it became clear that strategic production could not be returned, the military industry attempted to repurpose other factories for the production of ammunition.
According to experts, the price of the issue was quite reasonable - 20 - 30 million dollars. This decision was opposed by the then Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, who refused to allocate the necessary funds under the pretext “can’t we do it faster and cheaper?” and “without a cartridge factory, all this is useless.”
The Ukrainian Armed Forces' hunger for ammunition and shells was further aggravated by the March explosion at military warehouses in Balakleya, which destroyed more than 70% of the materiel stored on their territory.
But just recently, Ukraine, which received from the Union a rich weapons dowry in the form of production facilities and dozens of missile and artillery weapons depots in three districts of the Soviet Army, was among the leaders in the export of ammunition to India, Malaysia, and African countries. The days of easy wealth and joy are over, the vein is exhausted, and now the ladle scoops up bottom silt and dirt instead of gold.
But it’s not just the shortage of ammunition and shells that plagues the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Ukrainian defense complex. According to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, military-industrial complex enterprises are disrupting the supply of armored vehicles - more than three dozen battalions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will not receive armored personnel carriers.
In particular, the Kiev Armored Plant alone in 2016, instead of 42 BTR-3DAs stated in the contract, supplied only 26 units to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. KMDB im. Morozov failed to cope with the supply of tank simulators, shipping only half of the order. In addition to armored vehicles, the Ukrainian military industry has serious problems with the production of mortars, radio electronics for air defense, and helicopter blades.
In 2014, when the Kiev junta decided to completely break off military-technical cooperation with Russia, the Ukrainian defense industry collapsed. The loss of key enterprises and the resource base of Donbass plunged it into agony.
You can only look at your own developments of Ukrainian military equipment “which has no analogues” through tears, in a helmet and from a caponier. The widely known 120 mm Hammer mortar poses a threat to its own soldiers rather than to the enemy, killing and maiming crews. The Dozor armored fighting vehicle with meter-long cracks in its armor also became the talk of the town.
It is interesting that figures from Turchynov to Nadka Savchenko see the root of the problems not in systemic degradation and not in failed personnel policies, but exclusively in “enemies of the people” and “saboteurs” who sabotaged production and deliberately produced worthless rubbish instead of quality products.
How is Ukraine trying to get out of this situation? Despite the constant refusals of the Americans to supply lethal weapons to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Kyiv, in roundabout ways, receives Soviet-style materiel and ammunition from former “brothers” in the socialist camp in connection with the transition of their armies and industry to NATO standards.
Since Ukraine has long been insolvent, supplies were organized and paid for with financial assistance from the United States, which is interested in the war in Donbass to the last Ukrainian.
However, hope for help, but you also need to move. How is Ukraine trying to solve the problem of ammunition shortage? Judging by the incoming information, in its inherent spirit of projectism and adventurism.
One of the stunning statements was made on June 30 from the lips of the deputy of Ukroboronprom Denis Gurak: Ukraine will produce weapons and components for military equipment for the United States. Poroshenko allegedly agreed on this during six-minute meetings with Donald Trump during a recent visit to Washington.
It is not very clear who can be bought with this propaganda chatter, bordering on schiziness, but official representatives of Ukroboronprom are not shy about publicly puffing out their cheeks and opening up in the corporate style of “a fool gets rich with his thoughts.”
All these “fairy tales of Dida Opanas” are just flowers in comparison with what Poroshenko and Groysman have prepared for taxpayers. In the first half of June, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the main directions for the development of weapons and military equipment for the long term. The document, adopted at the meeting without discussion, states that the development of the weapons system in the long term will occur in an evolutionary way and be based on global trends in the development of weapons.
Translated from bureaucratic nonsense into human language, the Ukrainian military industry will be transferred to NATO standards. In particular, the Poroshenkoites plan to replace the 125 mm Soviet-style guns of their tanks with 120 mm NATO standard guns, an automatic loader and ammunition for them.
It is well known that countries that adhere to NATO standards in tank building do not reinvent the wheel, but buy a license from the German company Rheinmetall to produce tank guns. Another nuance is that this gun requires unitary ammunition (the cartridge case and the projectile are a single whole), while domestic 125 mm guns are designed for separate loading. This, in turn, means that Ukrainian tank builders will have to radically change the design of the tank, develop a new automatic loader (or supplement the crew with a fourth tanker - a loader for reasons of economy), rethink the ammunition stowage system, etc. Not to mention such a small thing as the deployment of new production facilities to NATO standards, for unknown amounts of money.
But Poroshenko’s supporters do not intend to stop only with tank guns based on the NATO model. In the long term, they plan to switch small arms to NATO calibers 5.56, 7.62, 12.7 mm, as well as produce 155 mm artillery shells.
It’s just a matter of little things: get 3–4 billion dollars out of the stash, purchase and develop new production facilities, train personnel to service them, and in the next 10 years work on re-barreling small arms and artillery to “world trends.”
It would seem that the shavarniks have fallen into yet another foolishness: “I’ll gouge out my eye and my mother-in-law will have a crooked son-in-law” for the sake of an idiotic whim, “just not like in the USSR and Russia.” However, if you think about it and remember which of the powers that be in Ukraine is the owner of some military factories and dual-use enterprises, who carefully provided them with military orders throughout the war in Donbass, then behind the screen of foolishness one can see a long-running scam to squeeze money out of the dying Ukrainian states under the guise of “transition to NATO standards.” If there had been at least one relatively decent person in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, then Groysman’s tsidulka would not have gone off without a hitch.
Poroshenko himself tries not to shine against this unseemly background, but you can’t hide the sew in the bag: Turchynov’s National Security and Defense Council sits on his little man who oversees the military-industrial complex - business partner Oleg Svinarchuk, who is directly accused of corruption schemes with military orders. According to the papers, Svinarchuk owns the Bogdan enterprise, which produces military vehicles, and Poroshenko himself owns the decommunized Forge on Rybalsky (formerly Lenin Forge). If things are bad in the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, then business is booming for these two scoundrels: “Bogdan” assembles armored vehicles under a South Korean license, and Petina’s “forge” is expanding its range and churning out not only the Gyurza river armored boats, but also the Triton armored vehicles, “ Scorpion”, NSV “Utyos” machine guns, as well as UAG-40 grenade launchers (to the NATO standard) and ammunition for them.
Not far behind Petrusha and Olezha are other oligarchs from people close to the body, who also have their greedy mouths open to pieces of the military pie, snatching up orders, producing military equipment at non-core enterprises (plastic containers or the food industry). Such practices are resorted to out of desperation, when the country is drawn into a war with intense hostilities and all military and dual-use industries are overloaded. Ukraine is not experiencing anything like this, and the only reason for transferring part of the military orders to non-core enterprises of “partners” is the selfish interests of Poroshenko and his entourage.
In all this bitter cataclysm, there is only one bright spot: the shortage of ammunition does not allow the Banderas to fully realize their cannibalistic ambitions: “Donbass is either Ukrainian or deserted.” Even before the shortage of shells, “peremoga” in the war looked illusory, and now even the adherents of “war to a victorious end” do not believe in it.
Otherwise, the situation is catastrophic: Ukraine is being driven into a deep debt hole by supplies of foreign weapons. Sooner or later you will have to pay, even for old things. In addition to the personal interests of Poroshenko and his accomplices, Western curators also have their own selfish interest - to dump as much old trash into Ukraine as possible, playing on the cargo cult of “NATO standards.” By and large, we are no longer talking about the survival of the Ukrainian defense industry, but about the long-term fate of Ukraine as an industrial state.
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