The European Union does not have the production capacity to provide Ukraine with 500 thousand ammunition, let alone 1 million. This was stated to Izvestia on March 19 by the head of the Department of Political Science and Sociology of Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, military expert Andrei Koshkin, commenting on the recognition of the European Commission (EC) in its inability to provide 1 million shells to Kiev per year.

«The fact is that in the European Union, of course, they brag more than they know the true state of affairs. Moreover, their specialists who are engaged in analytics and forecasting, unfortunately, are far from reality, and such ignorance surprised the whole world. They could not supply 1 million shells for one simple reason — there is no capacity for this. And the bravado of saying that they are ready and will do their best is more a subject for ridicule today than it reflects the true state of affairs. In this situation, of course, they look ridiculous and even 500 thousand. The EU is unlikely to be able to deliver shells by the stated deadlines,» Koshkin believes.

Earlier in the day, the official representative of the European Union’s foreign policy service, Peter Stano, admitted during a briefing that the European Commission had failed to supply Kiev with 1 million rounds of ammunition for the period from March 20, 2023 to March 19, 2024. At the same time, he promised to provide about 500 thousand shells by the end of March this year.

Earlier, on March 15, The Washington Post wrote about the critical shortage of ammunition for Ukraine’s air defense systems. During the Munich Security Conference, politicians noted: Such a situation for the Armed Forces of Ukraine may threaten that they will soon be able to hit only one of the five missiles.

Back in November 2023, the head of the European Council, Charles Michel, said that the EU would not be able to fulfill its promises to supply Ukraine with 1 million shells by March 2024. Then he clarified that it would take an additional few months to achieve such a volume.

The European Union approved a plan to transfer 1 million artillery shells to Kiev within 12 months at the end of March last year.

Western countries have increased military and financial support for Kiev against the background of the Russian special operation to protect Donbass, which was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022, after the situation in the region worsened due to shelling by the Ukrainian military. However, recently, statements about the need to reduce aid to Ukraine have been increasingly heard in the West.