This is how many artillery shells Ukraine is firing per day in order to win

The Ukrainian Armed Forces have been firing a lot of artillery shells at Moscow’s armies as Kyiv’s counter-offensive pushes Russia out of the occupied territories. But how many shells is Ukraine shooting off each day and how is that number really affecting the war? 

The conflict in Ukraine has been defined by the use of artillery more than any other type of weapons system. Heavy artillery battles have been an ever-present reality of the fight ever since Russia invaded and the intensity of the back-and-forth duels hasn’t let up. 

Stats from November 2022 revealed that Russian forces were firing as many as 20,000 shells a day at Ukrainian positions while Ukraine's artillery batteries were sending back between 4000 to 7000 rounds each day according to an NBC News report at the time. 

The information came from an unnamed U.S. defense official who was warning that the Ukrainians were going to require a restock before winter in order to keep Russian forces at bay since they were quickly burning through their stockpiles of artillery ammunition. 

“Ukraine still needs a significant amount of artillery going forward,” the official explained. “Consumption rates in this war are very high,” a sentiment that held true throughout the winter and well into both spring and summer as Ukraine continued firing a lot of shells. 

In April, The Washington Post reported on the ammunition shortage the Ukrainians were facing and noted that the country’s armed forces were firing roughly 7700 shells daily, a number one Ukrainian official explained equaled roughly one shell every six seconds. 

Russia was firing about triple the amount based on some estimates and The Post noted Ukraine was keeping up by getting picker in its target selection and working to conserve its ammunition by prioritizing Russian equipment over hitting small groups of soldiers. 

Ukraine was already suffering shortages of ammunition for its Soviet-era artillery guns at that time and Kyiv was being forced to rely on Western-supplied guns and their 155mm caliber shells, the stock for which The Washington Post noted could run out quickly. 

Ukraine’s Western allies were struggling to ramp up production of 155mm shells, which would later manifest in major shortages in Ukraine just as the country was preparing to launch its long-awaited counter-offensive against Russian forces in eastern Ukraine. 

On July 18th, CNN reported Kyiv had been provided with 2 million 155mm shells based on figures from the Pentagon and that the Defense Department set a goal of producing 70,000 per month, though it was only reaching 30,000 according to an Army official. 

Unfortunately, the CNN report also noted Ukraine was still burning through its supply and was firing between 2000 to 3000 artillery shells on a typical day. “This is an artillery-intensive fight,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in mid-July according to CNN.  

“You know, we’ve seen large amounts of artillery being employed on both sides of the fence,” Austin added. “And so that puts a strain on the international supply of munitions, artillery munitions.”

CNN noted that Ukraine's rate of fire was higher before the counter-offensive began but also said that was because Kyiv’s armed forces were conducting shaping operations in order to weaken Russian defensive positions in the face of Ukraine’s coming advance.

Other than constraining the number of shells Ukrainian forces are firing at present, the shortage of ammunition in Ukraine pushed President Joe Biden to give cluster bombs to Kyiv, a highly controversial weapon that frustrated some of Ukraine’s Western allies. 

"The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition, the ammunition that they used to call them 155-millimeter weapons,” Biden explained in an interview with Fareed Zakaria in early July defending his decision to send cluster bombs to Kyiv, NBC News reported. 

“This is a war relating to munitions, and they’re running out of those—that ammunition, and we’re low on it. And so what I finally did, took the recommendation of the Defense Department,” Biden continued, revealing one important fact about global supplies. 

The rate at which artillery is being fired in Ukraine is astounding and it stretched Kyiv’s allies to their limits, so much so that more dangerous types of weapons are being used as a stop-gap to help Ukraine reach its military goals, a situation that should worry anyone.