Ukraine: pass the ammunition reprised

By Richard North - June 25, 2022

One thing about the by-elections that hasn’t attracted much comment is the lack of any “war leader” premium. If there was any electoral gain from Johnson’s high-profile support of Ukraine, it does not appear to have had any significant effect on Thursday’s voting.

Given the current situation in Ukraine, though, it would be hard to discern whether Johnson’s support was, on balance, beneficial, if not to himself as a distraction from “partygate” and his other domestic woes, to that embattled nation or to UK foreign policy objectives – which are certainly not obviously well-served by the continuing conflict.

That assessment is made all the more difficult by the lack of clarity in the reporting on the fighting in Sievierodonetsk and adjoining areas, and a divergence in views as to the utility of the Ukrainian stand in the city.

As to the status of the fighting, it is variously reported that the Russians are about to take Sievierodonetsk, or that Ukraine has already surrendered the city.

Since there is evidence that troops are now pulling back to Lysychansk across the Siversky Donets using small boats, the presumption must be that the main battle for Sievierodonetsk is over.

The next level of uncertainty is over the fate of Lysychansk – whether the Ukrainians will be making a stand on the heights dominating Sievierodonetsk and the countryside to the west and south, or whether this city is also to be abandoned to the Russians, effectively conceding to them the rest of Luhansk Oblast.

Much will undoubtedly depend on the situation on the ground. The Ukrainians, as always these days, are claiming that they are beating off Russian attacks, keeping the escape route open to the south and west and permitting resupply.

CNN, on the other hand is retailing Russian claims that they have closed the small salient at the base of which lies the twin cities, claiming that Lysychansk “is actually in a state of operational encirclement”. Potentially entrapping as many as 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers, this makes the defence of city untenable.

Also via Izvestia, the Russians claim to have taken control of the Seversk- Lysychansk road, cutting off supplies to Ukrainians trapped in the salient.

The Russians are also said to have deployed additional tank units and a battalion tactical group to the area, as well as MLRS and TOS 1M thermobaric launchers – and even short-range ballistic missiles such as the Tochka-U.

Despite this, the Telegraph’s Dominic Nicholls has it that the Ukrainian resistance is all part of a cunning plan to suck Russian forces into an area of little strategic significance, using it “an anvil upon which Moscow’s limited remaining stock of decent equipment and fighters could be broken”.

The hollow nature of the Russian “victory”, Nicholls writes, will be shown in the exhausted slump of Russian formations after they plant their metaphorical flag on what’s left of Sievierodonetsk in the coming days. He adds that the chances of a breakout to the west, racing through the rest of Donetsk oblast to claim the entirety of the Donbas region for Moscow, are slim to nil.

Others are less certain, questioning the Ukrainian army for being so smart and clever as to lose one city after another to Russian invasion forces. Russia is winning because of its superior firepower and Ukraine can’t do much about it. And Ukraine winning becomes more unlikely, every day it loses ground.

Erik Zimerman, another critic, argues that exposing Ukrainian troops to encirclement was a mistake. The Ukrainian regime, desperate to show the western powers that with support it can in fact win, used (or abused) its troops to hold the salient to the maximum.

With the western media acting as a mouthpiece for Ukrainian announcements, parroting inaccurate reporting by UA authorities, these events may have a strong demoralising effect not only among the Ukrainian public but also among the Western public who will question their governments’ open-ended support of Ukraine.

Says Zimerman, a more realistic and honest reporting of the war by Ukrainian authorities, admitting how difficult the situation and how much courage among its men is needed to stop the Russian advance, rather than mocking it while repeating that only this piece of artillery, this many dollars, or this drone, or that many fighter jets, is all Ukraine needs to win, would have left Ukraine much better positioned to weather the defeats it is currently experiencing.

It would also, he says, allow it to sustain territorial losses while preserving its army (by withdrawing strategically), but the PR path that it has chosen does not allow such flexibility. Hence Ukraine has chosen to send its undertrained and undersupplied men to hold every metre of land to the death.

While this has bought Ukraine some time in its PR game, and afforded it some more western support, Zimerman suggests that, as the cauldrons close, more will wonder about the wisdom of such a strategy.

Nicholls, in his piece, though, asserts that time, in the long run, probably favours Ukraine. Western sanctions, he says, are starting to bite and Moscow’s limited industrial capacity, particularly when it comes to replacing sophisticated weapons, will soon come into sharp focus.

That Putin is prepared to smash wave after wave of his dwindling troops onto the Ukrainian rocks, he says, shows that he is no master strategist. That Ukraine knows when, where and for how long to keep fighting before withdrawing shows they currently have a better understanding of this war’s bigger picture.

However, that “bigger picture” may have some unpleasant surprises in store for Ukraine. The Times recently picked up on an issue which has been grumbling along for some time – that the West is unable to supply enough ammunition to the Ukrainians to support a long war.

This was articulated by defence secretary Ben Wallace, who said that Europe, including Britain, and the United States had “hollowed out’’ their forces so they looked “good at the front” but did not have sufficient supply lines. They had realised as a result of the war in Ukraine that their stocks were “inadequate” for the threats they faced.

Wallace’s comments link back to the work of Rusi which, in a paper published on 17 June, did some rough calculations on ammunition consumption and concluded that US annual artillery production would at best only last for 10 days to two weeks of intensive combat in Ukraine.

This, presumably, is on the basis of the current US purchases of about 150,000 artillery shells in a year – although not all are 155mm shells.

The UK is no better off, the MoD order for large-calibre artillery and tank shells amounting to a mere 100,000 rounds a year, for guns of all calibres including those arming Royal Navy vessels. South Korea may be a better bet, the government considering whether to provide the Canadians with 100,000 155mm calibre shells.

When it comes to the supply of Russian calibre guns, the situation is positively sinister, with Russian agencies actively conspiring to prevent supplies reaching Ukraine.

Even if the Ukrainians are supplied with the much-needed heavy weapons, therefore, the likelihood is that the West would not be able to provide the ammunition to support their sustained use. Ukrainian ambitions, in the context, are a chimera, perpetrating the cruel fiction that the West is yet in a position to match the sustained power of Russia.

Upon the West’s ability and willingness to solve this problem, the entire fate of Ukraine may depend.