In the Russian-Ukrainian war, the Armed Forces fired thousands of artillery rounds per day, while NATO forces in Afghanistan fired 300 shells per day. According to NATO representatives, "the amount of artillery used is staggering."
The New York Times notes that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western countries assumed that an artillery and tank war in Europe would never happen again, and significantly reduced the production and stockpiles of weapons. Now this is a problem for Ukraine and its allies.
"A day in Ukraine is a month or more in Afghanistan," said Camilla Grand, a defense expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations who was until recently NATOʼs assistant secretary general for defense investment.
Allies of Ukraine, helping the Armed Forces, do not have time to replenish their own weapons stocks. For example, the USA produces 15,000 shells per month, but even this is not enough, the publication notes.
Still, the West is trying to find increasingly scarce Soviet-era equipment and ammunition that Ukraine can use now, including S-300 air defense missiles, T-72 tanks, and especially Soviet-caliber artillery shells.