The Estonian Ministry of Defense proposed to take all weapons “from the reserves of each country” and give them to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

This was stated by the head of the defense department of the Baltic republic Hanno Pevkur in an interview with The Guardian newspaper.

“The top priority is to make a decision so that everything possible is taken from each country’s reserves to be sent to Ukraine,” he said.

As The Guardian journalists note, Europe is trying to find opportunities to increase ammunition production “against the backdrop of a serious shortage in Ukraine and growing uncertainty about further support from the United States.”

The publication also cites a commentary by former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy Jim Townsend, who is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

He believes that in the West there are problems with increasing arms production for Ukraine.

“If we talk about Europe, (the volumes -

RT

) of industry are too small.

The United States has the same problem: industry would not be able to provide large-scale production of everything necessary (Kiev. -

RT

) even if there were funds and political will, so it could take years to transfer some funds,” Townsend noted.

Although NATO countries are supplying Ukraine with “increasing amounts of ammunition,” this cannot be done in the time frame and in the volume “many expected,” according to The Guardian.

At the same time, Germany is resorting to desperate measures to find shells for the Ukrainian Armed Forces and is purchasing them all over the world, Der Spiegel reports from the head of the special headquarters for Ukraine at the German Ministry of Defense, General Christian Freuding.

According to him, there is a shortage of artillery and anti-aircraft ammunition.

The newspaper's material also notes that the German defense department is forced every day to come up with new ways to obtain shells for the Kyiv regime, which are now in short supply.

Earlier, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Alexey Danilov said that the West should transfer all available weapons and equipment to Kyiv, since “Europe will no longer need those guns, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and much more for the next war.”

According to him, this equipment will become “scrap metal”, which European countries will “absolutely not need, since there will be a completely different war.”

Production difficulties

Let us recall that in mid-January, the Ukrainian Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Danilov said that Kyiv was extremely alarmed that the European Union had not been able to supply the promised 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine.

In turn, in the same month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, in an interview with Die Zeit, called the EU’s assistance to Ukraine insufficient.

According to him, he is holding negotiations with European colleagues, during which he asks them to make more efforts to meet the needs of the Kyiv regime.

  • Destroyed Ukrainian Armed Forces equipment

  • © Ivan Rodionov

Later, in February, a representative of the German Ministry of Defense, Arne Collatz, admitted that Germany had reached its limits in the production and supply of ammunition for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

This is how he answered a question about the likelihood that the German government will be able to sign a series of agreements with the German defense industry to increase the supply of shells to the Kyiv regime.

As Politico reported in the same month, citing sources, the EU initiative to purchase shells for Ukraine outside the bloc as emergency aid also failed, as France, Greece and Cyprus “opposed the effort” and blocked the decision.

At the same time, European countries need to double military assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine because of the United States if the latter refuses financial support for Ukraine, writes Berliner Zeitung with reference to the head of the group for tracking support for Ukraine at the Kiel Institute of World Economics, Christophe Trebesch.

"Shortage of weapons in many categories"

As Victoria Fedosova, deputy director of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Forecasts of RUDN, noted, the statements of the Estonian Minister of Defense Pevkur are a manifestation of “a typical case of Estonian hysteria,” which, however, this time is not unfounded.

“When the head of the Estonian defense department says to take away everyone’s weapons and hand them over to Ukraine, he first of all means all NATO members, regardless of the national positions of individual states.

EU countries, judging by his position, should invest and give all their reserves to prolong the Ukrainian conflict.

While Estonia itself and the other Baltic countries, which scream the most, have practically no weapons at all.

Tallinn is screaming, realizing Europe’s inability to provide Kyiv with the necessary weapons,” the expert explained in a commentary to RT.

However, such a scenario is not entirely realistic, since “cleansing all arsenals will require a legislative decision” at the level of individual states, which not all agree to transfer their weapons stockpiles to Kyiv, Fedosova noted.

“This cannot be solved simply by establishing the European Union.

Yes, there is a European Peace Fund for Ukraine, which redistributes funds, and through this mechanism it was possible to pay for specific supplies, but some countries are not at all ready to privately provide any kind of assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

For example, Hungary and Slovakia will not do this; they have limited their participation to humanitarian lines,” she said.

At the same time, NATO allies are also unable to fully satisfy the growing needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for shells, the expert stated.

“The United States tried to bring in weapons from Australia, South Korea, Japan, but you need to understand that these are small supplies.

European stocks of equipment and weapons are rapidly depleting.

There is already a shortage of weapons in many categories,” Fedosova noted.

According to the analyst, one of the reasons for the West’s inability to transfer its economy to a war footing is that representatives of the military-industrial complex of these countries are afraid of the high economic risks associated with the production of significant quantities of weapons and shells for Ukraine.

“Production lines are not that easy to get going.

To begin large-scale production of weapons, you need to have a significant volume of orders for the future.

Producing small batches is unprofitable.

In addition, no one is sure that Ukraine will not “collapse” later, leaving factories without a sales market.

American corporations and the military-industrial complex obviously have greater influence here, but they, as we see, are not ready to produce military equipment and ammunition in such a volume,” she explained.

  • NATO ammunition

  • AP

  • © Efrem Lukatsky

As Fedosova recalled, at the moment the United States has almost completely shifted the burden of transferring ammunition to Kyiv onto the shoulders of Europe.

“At the same time, the Europeans themselves are afraid of being left naked if Donald Trump comes to power in the United States at the end of this year, who could completely turn off the aid tap to Kyiv,” Fedosova said.

In turn, Dmitry Evstafiev, a professor at the Institute of Media at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, candidate of political sciences, explained that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are experiencing a shortage of ammunition due to a “sharp and forced” transition from Soviet-style shells “to NATO.”

“The 152 mm caliber of the Soviet standard is absolutely not suitable for NATO guns, and Ukraine has been fighting for a long time mainly with the NATO 155 mm caliber, since almost all of the Soviet-style guns are out of order in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The main reserves of NATO ammunition are concentrated in three countries: South Korea, Israel, where American warehouses are located, and India.

But here another problem arises - this is a feature of NATO weapons, when even shells of the same caliber, but from different systems, are not interchangeable,” Evstafiev noted.

According to him, the Kiev regime is “hysterical” and demands from the Americans “the obviously impossible” - in fact, to completely “undress their allies.”

In Europe and the West, they are now “scraping the bottom of the barrel” to find weapons and ammunition for Ukraine, Evstafiev noted.

“The specter of shell hunger exists in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and it is already manifesting itself in some sectors of the front.

Western countries now need to collect at least something, at least somewhere, at any cost for any money.

Because the drones that the West relied on cannot completely replace artillery shells.

And this is one of the very big strategically significant miscalculations that NATO made.

Therefore, they now need to collect ammunition all over the world, even in individual quantities, so that the Ukrainian Armed Forces can hold out at least until the fall,” Evstafiev concluded.