| Submit your comments on this article |
| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| 'They set themselves up.' What does the military-industrial complex of Ukraine lose due to Russian strikes? |
| 2024-01-16 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Artemy Sharapov [REGNUM] On the night of January 13-14, the Russian Aerospace Forces launched a large-scale missile strike on Ukrainian territory. The enemy also recognized the effectiveness of the attack. According to the official statement of the command of the Air Force and Air Defense of Ukraine, out of 40 air attack weapons, Ukrainian air defense was able to shoot down only eight. It was previously noted that since the beginning of the year, Russian troops have increased the intensity of strikes. A wide range of weapons are used: from drones to hypersonic missile systems. Moreover, with each strike, Ukrainian air defense works less and less effectively. However, the targets chosen for the strikes are of much greater curiosity. During the missile attacks, defense factories located in different parts of the country were hit, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported. “A group strike was carried out with high-precision long-range weapons on the objects of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine, producing 155, 152 and 125 mm shells, gunpowder and unmanned aerial vehicles,” the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement. The British newspaper Financial Times also reports that the targets of strikes have recently increasingly become targets of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, citing its sources in Kiev. In particular, the publication reports that the target of the strikes was the Artyom enterprise (formerly the Artyom Kiev Machine-Building Plant), one of the leading manufacturers of weapons for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The plant specializes in the production of aircraft missiles and anti-tank missile systems. Previously, KMZ had repeatedly become the target of strikes, however, apparently, the Ukrainian army managed to establish partial production by transferring production to the surviving workshops, military expert Alexander Mikhailovsky suggested in a commentary to Regnum news agency. “ There haven’t been large-scale strikes against military-industrial complex facilities for a long time. It can be assumed that the enemy has become bolder and has lost his vigilance. Maybe they believed that we “didn’t have any missiles left”, and in the end they set themselves up,” the expert argues. But, he adds, you need to understand that these are “corrective” strikes; the bulk of the military-industrial complex was knocked out in the first months of the Northern Military District. Also, missile strikes hit enterprises created during the conflict, including drone production workshops. Former Verkhovna Rada deputy Igor Lutsenko reported a strike on one of the facilities. According to him, the company specialized in “new solutions” in the development of drones, repairing, improving and modernizing drones. Lutsenko did not specify where exactly the production facilities were located. However, it can be assumed that other enterprises in the “unmanned” industry also came under attack. WILL BE LEFT WITHOUT AMMUNITION According to satellite images published online, one of the targets of the latest strike was the Impulse plant in the city of Shostka, Sumy region. The company is unique in that it is the largest manufacturer of explosive devices, caps and detonators for ammunition in Ukraine. Before the start of hostilities, the company produced detonators for artillery shells, hand and anti-tank grenades, capsules for cartridges, anti-tank mines and other ammunition. Simply put, without the products of this enterprise, the Armed Forces of Ukraine can grind out a metal blank for a projectile, fill it with explosives and hand over such a craft to the troops. In theory, it is even possible to fire such “ammunition” from a gun. However, when hit, such a projectile will not detonate. The situation is similar with Ukrainian-made cartridges: without primers it will simply be impossible to shoot them. Realizing the importance of the enterprise for the entire military-industrial complex, the Ukrainian authorities invested in the reconstruction and modernization of the enterprise. In 2019, a new workshop for the production of means of initiating artillery shells and missile weapons was created at the plant. Ukroboronprom noted that the capacity of the Impulse plant is capable of fully meeting the needs of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to experts, for the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, the failure of an enterprise could be a very sensitive loss, since products of this kind cannot be supplied by NATO countries in sufficient quantities. “We are primarily talking about initiation means for Soviet-style ammunition. These are calibers 82, 122, 152 mm. And primers for 5.45 mm cartridges. They are produced in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, but the volumes there are not what the fighting army needs,” explains Mikhailovsky. “So if Kiev does not somehow solve this problem, then in the future they may have serious problems with the production of ammunition,” the expert notes. He noted that Kyiv had previously presented underground factories for the production of “Soviet-style” ammunition, created in the western regions of the country. However, the published photos show machined “blanks” for shells, not equipped with a remote-contact fuse. It is likely that some industrial facilities of the Impulse enterprise were also evacuated or hidden in underground workshops, but it will not be easy to restore the entire detonator production cycle in such conditions. It is quite difficult to identify other targets of the recent strikes, since Ukrainian military censorship ensures that any information about the “arrivals” does not appear online. However, this is where local sources come to the rescue. In local chats of Rivne residents, messages were published about explosions in the northern part of the city, where there are industrial zones and one of the largest chemical industry enterprises - the Rivne Azot plant, where the production of explosives was most likely launched during wartime. It can be assumed that the damaged facilities in Kyiv, Khmelnitsky and other cities were also directly related to the release of ammunition. LIKE IN 1915 With the defeat of the main ammunition production enterprises, Kiev faces a difficult choice. On the one hand, the command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces would certainly like to completely switch to the NATO standard and abandon Soviet-style ammunition. However, Ukraine itself does not produce the same 155-mm artillery shells and requests them from the West, but the EU and the USA are not able to satisfy the requests of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. For example, in March 2023, Kiev requested 250 thousand shells per month from the EU, FT noted. Brussels promised significantly less - a million shells per year, but could not fulfill even these obligations, delivering only 480 thousand, as reported by Reuters. In any case, this could not but affect the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ ability to conduct effective artillery fire. “There are estimates that the Ukrainian Armed Forces fire about 1/5 of the shells they need to maintain parity,” notes Mikhailovsky. If it is possible to significantly influence the production of shells in Ukraine itself, then this value may decrease even further. And since assistance from the EU and the US is slowing down, we can talk about the prospects of a shell famine. Mikhailovsky recalled that the canonical example of a “shell famine” is the crisis of the Russian army in 1915, which ultimately led to a retreat along the entire front. Therefore, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine should prepare for “difficult decisions” if Western partners in the future are not generous with new supplies to cover the arms shortage. |
| Posted by:badanov |