In 2023, the Ministry of Defense signed almost half as many arms procurement contracts as in 2022: what is the reason
Kyiv • UNN
In 2022, Ukraine signed about 180 contracts for the purchase of ammunition, which is almost twice as many as the 90 contracts signed in 2023, for a total of more than 640 contracts for the purchase of weapons and ammunition during 2022-2023, of which about 300 were completed as of March 6, 2024.
In 2022, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine signed about 180 contracts for the purchase of ammunition, and last year almost twice as few - more than 90. The MoD press service reported this in response to a request from UNN.
"About 180 state contracts were signed for the purchase of ammunition in 2022. In 2023, more than 90 state contracts were signed," the response to the request reads.
In total, during 2022-2023, the Department signed more than 640 state contracts for the purchase of weapons and ammunition. As of March 6, 2024, about 300 of them have been completed.
Military expert Dmytro Snegiryov believes that the number of contracts may have decreased because Ukraine was waiting for artillery shells to be delivered by international partners.
"Most likely, they were counting, as always, on support from Western countries. Most likely, they were counting on 1 million shells from the EU, free of charge. So they decided to "save" budget funds. But this led to such a thing as a shell famine for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, when there is nothing to shoot and, accordingly, the enemy's firepower is 1 to 5, meaning that the enemy was able to fire 10,000 shells a day, and we responded with 2,000," the expert explains.
According to the expert, the number of contracts could also be affected by corruption. He emphasized that the SBU and the Foreign Intelligence Service should check for corruption to avoid it.
"This is not a question for the Defense Ministry. Any contract is checked by the special services at the time of possible corruption risks, and the question is why they did not do it before. Any contract, if a counterparty is found, is checked in a day or two in the global world," the expert says.
In addition, experts in comments to UNN noted that the arms market is a large monopolywhere anyone cannot sign a supply contract. Therefore, it is difficult for Ukraine to purchase weapons and ammunition on the international market. In addition, Russia is trying by all means to prevent the sale of much-needed ammunition to Ukraine, especially Soviet-style ammunition. As you know, there are warehouses with such ammunition in the Balkan countries, but they refuse to sell shells directly to Ukraine. The MoD can only buy ammunition from these countries through intermediary countries.
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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 produced to a greater extent 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.
