Europe has already handed over all surplus shells to Ukraine - expert

European countries have already transferred all the ammunition they could to Ukraine, and now the process of launching facilities for the production of artillery shells is underway. This was reported by military expert Mykhailo Zhyrokhov in an exclusive commentary to UNN.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that due to the full-scale war, the cost of artillery shells in the world has increased 5 times, but Ukraine is fighting for every round. At the same time, experts commented to UNN that the arms market is fiercely competitive, and Russia still uses its influence on countries that have Soviet-style ammunition to prevent Ukraine from receiving shells.

"Every European country has NATO standards and must have enough ammunition in its warehouses to last for 2-2.5 months, if I'm not mistaken. That's why these shells that we received before were surplus, and now we are in the process of launching the facilities to produce artillery shells," said Zhyrokhov.

At the same time, he said, there are enough shells in the world, but money is needed to buy them.

The expert also confirmed that some European countries refuse to sell ammunition to Ukraine because of Russia's influence. Therefore, some of them do it through intermediaries - other European countries.

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The vast majority of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' weapons before the full-scale invasion were, to varying degrees, Soviet inheritance. Therefore, the weapons themselves, spare parts and ammunition are produced mostly in the former Warsaw Pact countries. 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, 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 under the strong influence of 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 despite their overwhelming support for Ukraine, they refuse to supply us with weapons and ammunition directly. Therefore, Ukraine is forced to purchase ammunition from these countries through a number of intermediaries.