The Peanut Gallery: Europe Funds Czech Artillery Deal - Ukraine's Shell Famine to End
March 11, 2024
Welcome to the Peanut Gallery! Today Ukraine found some ammunition!
Please remember that I know nothing.
Ukraine’s European partners continue efforts to aid and supply Ukraine. British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps stated on March 7 that the United Kingdom (UK) will allocate 125 million pounds (about $160 million) to purchase 10,000 drones for Ukraine in 2024.[83] Officials from Luxembourg, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, and France announced recently that they will join the Czech initiative to fund the provision of artillery ammunition from outside the EU to Ukraine.[84] The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated on March 7 that Norway will provide $150 million to the Czech artillery ammunition initiative.
The speed at which the European countries are jumping on says the source is legit. Even France agreed to purchase from someplace ‘outside the EU’, so question arises: where the fuck are the shells coming from?
Hey! Who’s a massive artillery shell producer based outside the EU? I’ll give you a hint: they have several billion worth of boom-boom bullets made specifically to kill Russians just...sitting around. Waiting for a four-eyed Bible thumper to do his job.
Which leads me to think Biden found a loophole.
From an ignorant layman’s perspective, the President could unilaterally order the reduction of the strategic stockpile, instigating the army to sell-off the equipment to the highest bidder. The EU pools its money, buys the shells, and (assumingly) the DOD immediately signs replenishment contracts with European-based factories.
Have I got this self-fellating ouroboros correct, or am I off? Let me know in the comments below.
Assuming this is a real option, it means Biden can do whatever the fuck he wants with the United States Armed Forces, including fulfill its various commitments through expensive intermediaries. Congress really can’t stop him, provided someone signs the ‘IOU’.
Whether it’s thanks to the United States, or Europe suddenly remembering South Korea’s phone number, the fact of the matter is that Ukraine is about to get a fuckload of artillery shells. Their long-hour of deprivation is coming to an end.
Man...fuck Mike Johnson.
A Ukrainian military observer offered assessments of Russian force generation and defense industrial base (DIB) capacities that are consistent with ISW’s previous assessments.
Unfortunately this coming resupply simply places Ukraine back on parity. Russia’s DIB is still very much a thing, and it continues to pump-out tanks, artillery, and rat-feed in prodigious quantities. Its focus is one of quantity over quality, yet this often means the state’s aims and the reality simply don’t mesh.
For instance,
Russia’s increased defense industrial base (DIB) production is likely not sustainable in the medium and long-term as it will likely suffer from labor shortages, decreased weapons and equipment stockpiles, and an inability to completely compensate for military and dual-use items it can no longer acquire due to sanctions.
ISW calls out soon-to-deploy units marching off-to-war with nearly-doctrinally proscribed allotments of equipment. Meanwhile units actively engaged operate within the 30-50% range. This of course means two rather important things,
Current output is insufficient to meet the war’s requirements.
Russia’s DIB is operating with a 20% labor shortage, meaning there’s slack industrial capacity so the current bottleneck is one of labor.
A labor bottleneck is a difficult problem to solve, assuming whips and chains aren’t an option. If the issue were financial then the absurd wages offered by both the army and the DIB would’ve resolved it. Yet the shortages persist, so a lack of money isn’t the bottleneck. The actual problem is a lack of people. Russia is churning through soldiers at a prodigious rate, drawing from the same pool of potential recruits. One’s bottomless appetite starves the other.
I don’t see a resolution to this dilemma, to be honest. Anyone who’s refrained from taking a job with the DIB did so for a damn good reason. My guess is Russia’s DIB problems will persist into the future; meaning Putin’s got to figure out how to wring more from his people, or else this is the peak of Russia’s productive capacity.
A Ukrainian military source noted that Russian forces are increasingly using grenades equipped with chemical substances in the Zaporizhia direction, in potential violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) to which Russia is a signatory.
Look, I don’t want to alarm anyone, but Putin is working himself up to using lethal chemical weapons. These grenades are filled with teargas (for now), but Moscow could just as easily fill them with something more lethal.
Ukraine was aware of the possibility; they equipped themselves for it; but there’s a huge gulf between preparation and reality.
France is reportedly prepared to build a coalition of countries that are open to potentially sending Western military personnel to Ukraine.
Ah! I see what Macron is doing. It’s clever.
Unless I’m mistaken, he looks to be trying to use this ‘coalition of countries’ as a tool to weld together the EU into a cohesive army. I think it’s a fantastic idea. Collective defense means collective contributions, which means institutions and systems to decide onerous of responsibility. It means centralization and actual executive power.
Russian authorities in Moscow Oblast created “training programs” for people potentially considering adopting illegally deported Ukrainian children in Russia.[80] The program reportedly falsely conflates Ukrainian and Russian culture. The program reportedly tells participants that their main objective is to create a “second homeland” for Ukrainian children in Russia and that they will need to overcome “difficulties in international differences.” Participants of the training program must undergo interviews in which Russian authorities ask if they have Ukrainian friends and relatives. ISW continues to assess that the forced deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children likely amounts to a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Please give Ukraine what they need to bring this war to an end.
‘Q’ for the Community:
Should Europe form a single, united army?
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