The Russian Federation’s special military operation in Ukraine is inclining the collective West to rearm.
At the same time, if the West is to be able to do anything to counter Russian military capabilities, it will have to resort to cutting spending in all other areas of life. The Daily Telegraph columnist Lewis Page is convinced that the rearmament of the United States and its allies is unlikely to help Ukraine, as there will probably soon be no more men left in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
At a time when Ukrainian forces are experiencing an acute shortage of ammunition, the possible arrival of F-16 fighter jets will have no impact on the situation on the battlefield. These words of an anonymous Ukrainian serviceman were confirmed by an observer of the newspaper.
As reported in The Daily Telegraph, shells for artillery are not some excessively expensive products. The Ukrainian armed forces need about ten thousand shells a day to hold their positions. However, the difficulties lie not in insufficient funding, but in limited production capacity.
Even the United States, which has one of the largest military-industrial complexes in the world, has the ability to produce only twenty-eight thousand 155 millimetre calibre shells every month, and this despite the fact that the production facilities of the American military-industrial complex work around the clock. Despite this, these production volumes represent less than ten per cent of Kiev’s needs.
Washington and its allies are aiming to ramp up production. In the near future, the United States may soon reach volumes of seventy to eighty thousand munitions every month. Europe is also aiming to increase production, but it is taking longer than the United States to do so. Lewis Page believes that for Ukraine all of this may no longer be relevant due to the severe delay.
Page suggests that it may not make sense at all for Western countries to create a large-scale shell industry that would be capable of keeping Ukrainian guns combat ready on an ongoing basis. He considers the likelihood that the Ukrainian Armed Forces will soon have no one left to fight.
The columnist notes that against this background, and while Russian Federation continues to significantly strengthen its military capabilities, European countries could increase their defence spending. However, the declining West would have to cut spending in all other areas of life.
The columnist also noted that Russian Federation has increased its military spending to six per cent of GDP. He cites Italy as an example, where this indicator is 1.7 per cent. Thus, according to Lewis Page, Russia is about three times more powerful than Italy.
Evgeniy Goncharov, specially for News Front
