The EU failed to fulfill the plan to provide Ukraine with 1 million shells by the end of the year

The European Union will not be able to fulfill its promise to provide Ukraine with 1 million artillery shells by February 2024. However, after initial delays, ammunition production has begun to grow and may double by early next year compared to the period before the Russian invasion.

Source. Bloomberg

In March 2023, the EU countries agreed to spend €1 billion from the European Peace Fund on the joint purchase of ammunition, primarily 155-mm howitzer shells, which are so necessary for Ukrainian artillery, and another €1 billion to compensate governments for the cost of transferring ammunition to Ukraine, both new and Soviet-made, from their own stocks.

The offer to supply Kyiv was put forward by Estonia; it was assumed that Ukraine would receive 1 million shells within a year.

However, only about 224,000 shells and 2,300 missiles were delivered from the available stocks, as the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, noted in late August. And the European defense industry was not ready for a rapid expansion of capacities.

This process was delayed, among other things, by the slow flow of government orders: during the three decades of peace after the end of the Cold War and the reduction of military spending, the departments of a number of countries have forgotten how to make quick decisions in this area.

But now the process is getting better. "European industrial capacities have increased, so this is a positive trend," Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur told Bloomberg. "Probably by the end of this year or early next year, we will be able to produce almost twice as many missiles as we did a year ago.

Pevkur did not give specific figures. But when presenting its plan to produce 1 million shells to EU counterparts in February, Estonia pointed out that European capacities allow for only 25,000 shells per month, or 300,000 per year.

Doubling this figure would yield 600,000 shells by the end of this year or early next year.

Production of 1 million will be reached next year, a source familiar with the situation told Bloomberg.