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| A woman walks past a destroyed Russian tank in the town of Trostsyanets |
International Military - Ukrainian troops are running out of ammunition and can only rely on Western-supplied weapons in the battle against Russia. The statement was made by a top Ukrainian intelligence official. "It's an artillery war now," Ukraine's deputy head of military intelligence Vadim Skibitsky told The Guardian on Friday (10/6/2022).
"Long-range combat will determine the outcome of the conflict between the two countries, and we lost in artillery," he said. "Ukrainian forces are currently firing 5,000 to 6,000 artillery shells a day, and their supplies are rapidly running out," the intelligence official said.
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He explained, “We have almost exhausted all of our artillery munitions and are now using standard 155 caliber NATO rounds.” Kiev also has heavy weaponry in the Donbass, nearly running out of Soviet and Russian-designed artillery it had at the start of the Moscow military operation, according to Skibitsky.
"Ukraine has one artillery, compared to 10 to 15 Russian artillery pieces," he said. "Everything now depends on what the West gives us," the intelligence official said. He explained, “Our Western partners have given us about 10% of what they have.” Skibitsky also asked Kiev's foreign backers to supply long-range rocket systems that could destroy Russian artillery from afar.
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The US and its allies are reluctant to provide Ukraine with this type of weaponry for fear it could lead to direct conflict between Russia and NATO.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that if Kiev finally gets a long-range missile, "We will draw the right conclusions and use our weapons, which we have sufficient, to attack objects that we have not attacked." "Ukraine needs the West to supply as many as 300 multiple launch rocket systems to level the playing field in the Donbass," Mikhail Podolyak, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said on Thursday.
Earlier this week, Russia's Defense Ministry said 3,443 Ukrainian tanks and other Ukrainian armored vehicles, 1,807 field artillery and mortars, 1,139 drones, 478 multiple rocket launchers, 190 aircraft and 129 helicopters had been destroyed since the launch of the military operation.
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Russia attacked the neighboring country in late February, following Ukraine's failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreement, which it first signed in 2014, and Moscow's eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.
The Minsk Protocol brokered by Germany and France was designed to give breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.
The Kremlin has since demanded that Ukraine formally declare itself a neutral nation that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists Russia's attack is completely unwarranted and denies claims it plans to retake the two republics by force.
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