IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Russia and Ukraine are firing 24,000 or more artillery rounds a day

Russia has lost a lot of equipment, including helicopters, and some of its fresh troops are arriving at the front lines without weapons, say officials.
Ruins of a Russian MSTA 2S19 howitzer in Trostyanets, Ukraine, on April 21, 2022.
The ruins of a Russian MSTA 2S19 howitzer in Trostyanets, Ukraine, on April 21.Gaelle Girbes / Getty Images file

Russia and Ukraine are burning through artillery shells and other weapons and ammunition at a rate not seen since the Korean War, officials said, and will need to restock during the long winter to come. 

Russia is firing a staggering 20,000 artillery rounds per day, a senior U.S. defense official estimated, while Ukraine is firing from 4,000 to 7,000 rounds daily.

The Ukrainians are quickly burning through their stockpiles of artillery rounds and other ammunition, including for their air defense systems, officials said.

“Ukraine still needs a significant amount of artillery going forward,” the official said. “Consumption rates in this war are very high.”

Ukraine has not lost a single HIMARS system, said the official. The U.S. has provided 18 of the high-mobility multiple rocket launchers to the Ukrainians. 

Russia is also running low on artillery and other equipment, according to a Western official and a U.S. official. Russia has lost a lot of its equipment and weapons, including attack helicopters, and it has been using more of its long-range munitions to strike targets, which could indicate it is running through other stocks, a Western official said. Russian reservists and mobilized forces are even arriving at the front lines without weapons in some cases, the officials said.

Speaking at the Economic Club of New York on Wednesday, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, said Russia has burned through a lot of equipment, ammunition — and men. Milley said Russia and Ukraine have each suffered more than 100,000 killed or wounded since the war began. 

Milley said the human misery brought by the Russian invasion “needs to stop.” The two sides need to recognize victory is not achievable through military means, he argued, and get to a negotiating table. He called the likely slower operational pace in Ukraine this winter “a window of opportunity” for negotiations. Fighting will continue in the cold, but the situation will be “relatively static,” he said.

Air defense

For months U.S. defense and military officials have said a key reason Ukraine has been successful defending against Russia is that it has kept the airspace over Ukraine contested from the moment the invasion began. Some officials believe Russia’s inability to take over the country quickly was in part because the contested airspace kept many advanced Russian aircraft grounded or restricted to Russian skies. But Ukraine needs more air defense systems, officials said, so it has an integrated network that can defend against drones to missiles flying at various altitudes and distances.

Without enough air defense ammunition and integrated air defense systems, the air superiority in Ukraine is in jeopardy, the officials said. Russia has not been able to use its substantial air forces much since the invasion, but if it begins to use them it could turn the tide of the war and change the nature of the fighting. Ukraine does not have a substantial air force, so it needs to make sure it can make it dangerous for Russians to fly.

Wrecks of Russian artillery destroyed by the Ukrainian armed forces during the Russian war with Ukraine are displayed in exhibition in Gdansk, Poland, on Aug. 23, 2022.
Wrecks of Russian artillery destroyed by the Ukrainian armed forces during the Russian war with Ukraine in an exhibition in Gdansk, Poland, on Aug. 23.Michal Fludra / NurPhoto via Getty Images file

The U.S. and allies have accelerated efforts to get Ukraine more systems and ammunition, including a resupply of Ukraine’s Soviet-era air defenses. “Work is ongoing to figure out how much can be produced and how fast, not just for U.S. systems, but for other systems as well,” a defense official said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other U.S. officials have been pushing allies and scouring warehouses around the world to keep Ukraine supplied, and some have stepped up.

At a meeting with more than 50 allies in Brussels last month, defense leaders from around the world agreed air defenses were an urgent priority for Ukraine and met for hours to find ways to get Ukraine both new systems and ammunition for it old, Soviet-era systems. The U.S. delivered its first shipment of short- to medium-range air defense systems called NASAMs on Tuesday, according to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, who tweeted that Aspide air defense systems have also arrived and thanked partners in Spain, Norway and the U.S.