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A major ammunition supplier to Ukraine described the struggle to obtain quality components.
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Czech defense CEO Michal Strnad told the FT that rising prices and poor quality were making the job difficult.
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Ukraine suffers from chronic ammunition shortages.
Central Europe’s largest ammunition supplier said quality and cost issues meant that half of the shells it buys for Ukraine cannot be shipped directly to the country, according to the Financial Times.
“Every week the price goes up and there are major problems with the components,” Michal Strnad, CEO of the Czechoslovak Group, or CSG, told the newspaper.
“It’s not an easy job,” he added.
CSG, which has purchased ammunition for Ukraine on behalf of the Czech government, has found that supplies brought in from Asia or Africa are often missing parts or in need of work, the newspaper said.
As such, the company is forced to add missing components on its own, which has delayed delivery.
Strnad told the newspaper that the initiative is still “on schedule,” with deliveries expected in June.
Strnad’s comments came as five European leaders met in Prague on Tuesday to discuss plans to obtain 800,000 155mm artillery shells from non-EU countries to send to Ukraine, Radio Free Europe reported.
The $1.7 billion project is funded by 15 EU countries and NATO, on a country-by-country basis.
In a joint statement, the group of leaders said half a million rounds of ammunition would be delivered by the end of the year.
In January, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the war in Ukraine had become “a battle for ammunition”.
It’s a message Strnad wishes Western leaders had adopted sooner.
He told the FT that he warned policymakers two years ago that the easy availability of ammunition would determine the war, but says his message was not heard.
“They didn’t think a war could break out in which artillery would play the leading role,” he said. “Everyone was thinking about drones, artificial intelligence and new trends.”
Rapidly developing technologies such as drones and electronic warfare have indeed played a crucial role in the conflict. But Ukraine’s inability to advance along the front line this year – and its losses – have been blamed on a chronic shortage of soldiers and ammunition.
In April, the situation led an American veteran serving there to describe Russia as the “alpha predator” of the war, as Business Insider’s Sinéad Baker reported.
Ukraine has been forced to limit itself to firing 2,000 shells a day for much of this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
And it is only since mid-May that the armed forces have begun to breathe easier about their ability to throw grenades, Zelenskyy said.
Since the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale invasion, CSG has derived much of its profits from supplying Ukrainian forces.
In March, the company announced that it wanted to start several joint ventures in Ukraine for the production of heavy ammunition and equipment, Reuters reported.
Read the original article on Business Insider
