The United States and the European Union can help Ukraine buy Soviet-style ammunition from the Balkan countries, as they refuse to supply it to us directly. Pavlo Narozhnyi, a military expert and co-founder of the "Jet Mail" charity organization, said this in a commentary to UNN .
Experts commenting on UNN note that Russia is creating problems in the arms market to prevent Ukraine from receiving Soviet-style ammunition. At the same time, the Balkan countries still have warehouses with such shells, which can be bought cheaper than NATO ones. However, these countries refuse to supply these weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, as they keep them as their national stockpile to maintain their defense capabilities.
"There is a problem (with the purchase of ammunition in the Balkan countries - ed.), it is difficult. However, we need Soviet ammunition. The answer is simple - one of the allies should buy this ammunition and then transfer it to Ukraine. It can be any of the EU countries or the United States, or other third countries that have no problems," said Mr. Narozhnyi.
He also added that companies supplying weapons and ammunition, like most of those who supply anything to the Ukrainian army, require prepayment.
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The absolute state armament of the Ukrainian Armed Forces before the full-scale invasion was, to varying degrees , a Soviet legacy. Therefore, the weapons themselves, spare parts and ammunition are mostly produced on the territory of former Warsaw Pact states.
Some of the states that have the ammunition Ukraine needs are hostile, such as Russia and Belarus. Ukraine received all possible assistance from other post-socialist countries that joined the EU (Poland, the Czech Republic, etc.).
However, there remains a group of Balkan states that, despite the European integration processes in some of them and support for Ukraine, are still strongly influenced by the Russian Federation. In these states, friends of Russia are still in power and have a significant impact on the policies of their countries. In practice, this is manifested in the fact that with the increase in support for Ukraine, they refuse to directly supply us with weapons and ammunition. Therefore, Ukraine is forced to purchase ammunition from these countries through a number of intermediaries.