Ukraine has broken the EU. Now they're out of weapons, they cannot make more, and the US is leaving
Bullets:
The war in Ukraine consumes vast quantities of arms and ammunition, supplied almost entirely by the US and the EU.
Battlefield demands in Ukraine far outstrip the combined production of the entire Western bloc.
Arsenals across the EU are empty, and the United States is far more reluctant today to supply the Ukraine war effort.
But Europe faces severe problems in their efforts to rearm, and to make good their public support and promises to Ukraine.
Despite having a far smaller economy than either the US or the EU, Russia easily produces more ammunition and war materiel than the NATO countries, combined.
Meanwhile, Russia's close ally China has the world's most productive industrial sector, and monopolies on the supply chains necessary to build armaments.
Last year, China cut off exports of antimony, a critical component of explosives, and antimony prices have more than quadrupled in less than a year.
Report:
Good morning. Western militaries and governments now face severe supply chain challenges, as a result of the war in Ukraine which has depleted European and American ammunition stocks. And now China has put a ban on many of the raw materials needed to re-arm.
Here is the math. Ukraine needs over 4 million artillery shells a year to perform their missions on the battlefield. The United States produces at a rate of 432,000 shells per year. Even if every single one of those shells we build is sent to the Ukraine, and we include all the production from NATO countries, we can only provide half of what Ukraine needs to continue the war.
Russia, right now, produces 3 million artillery shells a year, and will produce at least 4 million this year. A key problem is this: the relationship between China and Russia is strong, China has the supply chains for the raw materials, and is the world’s most productive industrial economy. And Russia is already expert at producing artillery and shells anyway, and Moscow has successfully turned Ukraine into a war of attrition, instead of maneuver, which also plays to their strengths there. Having friends in Beijing means that “the West might not be able to catch up”, even if the war ends tomorrow.
Now, this news here is somewhat comforting, on its face. Ukraine produces 40% of what it uses on the battlefield, and in the two-year period 2023-2024, Ukraine tripled their production of artillery systems, increased APC manufacturing 5 times, doubled anti-tank weapons and 2.5 times ammunition.
But the reality on the front lines tells a different story. Here’s the math again, Ukraine is far outstripping NATO’s current production capacity and draining our own arsenals, and Ukraine’s rate of expenditure is many times higher than Western Europe’s ability to meet that demand. The production lag for large-caliber ammunition has more than doubled from 12 to 28 months.
Ukraine’s armor production is often just taking sold Soviet equipment and upgrading it. Ukraine’s munitions industry cannot produce or deliver simple weapons, and “without US help, Ukraine has a very low chance of surviving the war.”
Publicly, their Strategic Industries Ministry is saying that things are improving, that Ukraine already produced half of its artillery ammunition last year, and will make almost all of it for 2025, including NATO-standard shells. Here we see, though, what Ukrainian troops themselves are saying. “The shells are no good.” They’re low quality, and even though most of the ammunition that reaches the front lines are Ukraine-made, Ukrainian troops “don’t like to work with them”, and are “scared to use them.” Recently Ukraine had to recall 30,000 defective mortar shells because somewhere in the chain powder was being taken out of the shells, meaning they blow up closer to Ukrainian troops than to Russian forces.
So Ukraine is trying to get ammunition from wherever it can—the United States, Poland, Italy—and the India angle to this story is interesting enough that we’re doing a stand-alone report on that in a few days. But Ukrainian shells are “trash”, despite the money spent on the industry.
Russian arms production is a completely different story. The Russian economy is less than a tenth the size of the United States or the European Union, but Russia easily manages to produce more than the entire West—that’s US and Canada and the EU combined—in the key weapons and supply systems.
So the situation facing defense ministers and policymakers in the EU and the US is that the ground war that we are supporting in the Ukraine is draining our stockpiles of weapons systems and ammunition. That was the problem in November, 2024—when this analysis was done, and for this one from June of last year.
Two events of huge import have made the situation in Europe even worse since then. This whole piece involves the question of what happens next, given that the United States is fine to walk away from the European mess and focus on our own problems, and what that means for Europe. And since mid-November 2024, the US is only much further down that road. So Europe faces some hard choices, about re-armament, support for Ukraine, building their own defense apparatus, all without the United States. There is no good news coming out of Washington these days, for the defense challenges that Europe is facing, now that they are on their own.
The news from Beijing is pretty bad, too, if we assume that Europe’s plan is to manufacture their own weapons systems and ammunition for them. Because China and their closest allies and trading partners own the supply chains to build weapons systems and the ammunition for them.
Antimony is one of those things, and there’s now a global shortage of antimony. China has very strict export controls on dual-use raw materials and technologies, dual-purpose meaning that they have military as well as civilian applications.
Antimony mining and production is dominated by China and Russia, and the export restrictions on antimony caused a quadrupling of antimony prices. Antimony and lead are used in bullets, explosives, shrapnel weapons and cluster munitions. All of that needs to be replaced, and supply chain guys don’t know what to do.
Global demand of antimony is 120,000 tons a year, global production is 80,000 a year, and China, Russia, and Tajikistan produce 87% of the world’s antimony supply.
Put another way, we need antimony to make high explosives. We need to produce lots of high explosives if we’re going to replenish our own supplies, plus whatever we send to Ukraine. Ukraine is taking those high explosives to shoot at Russians, and now Russia and China are cutting off global antimony supplies.
Resources and links:
Metal For Bullets Risks Bigger Shortage After Near-300% Surge
Critical Metal For Bombs & Bullets Explodes Higher In Mega-Squeeze Amid Global Shortage
Ukraine using up vast amount of munitions, draining stockpiles: Nato chief
‘We cannot survive’ without foreign weapons, say Ukrainian soldiers fearing looming Trump cuts
Can Europe Back Ukraine’s Fight Alone?
https://newlinesmag.com/argument/can-europe-back-ukraines-fight-alone/
No silver bullet: Aid is not a shortcut to victory for Ukraine
Antimony: 2025 World Market Review and Forecast to 2034
https://mcgroup.co.uk/researches/antimony
What I don't understand is how can sensitive data like the amount of shells produced or used, the existing stock of ammunition or where they are purchased from becomes publicly available. Especially while the war is going on. Isn't like showing your cards while you are playing?
I'd suggest Andrei Martyanov, Dr Fadi Lama, or even Michael Hudson would dispute this, "Russian arms production is a completely different story. The Russian economy is less than a tenth the size of the United States or the European Union". Russia's economy has eclipsed Germany and or Japan for that matter. Most of the metrics for economic size have come from a preponderance of "financialisation". None the less, as usual, your reports are very well researched and always worth checking out. Thanks.