KEY POINTS
- The UAF General Staff said nearly half of Russia’s new batches of ammunitions have rust damage
- The UAF General Staff suggests Russia will face ammunition shortage within two to three months
- Russia previously issued World War II-era bolt action rifles to soldiers
Members of the Russian army have now resorted to using rusted ammunition after going through almost an “entire stock” of artillery ammo in the war in Ukraine, an intelligence report said.
The Russian army was given new batches of artillery ammunition from storage units in other Russian regions. However, nearly half of the new ammunition is showing signs of rust, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (UAF) said in an intelligence report published Thursday, citing preliminary information.
“The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have almost used up the entire stock of artillery ammunition kept in storage in the central part of Russia. Nowadays, we observe the movement of ammunition from depots located in other oblasts of Russia to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine,” the intelligence report read.
“There is also an unsatisfactory state and quality of new batches of ammunition due to improper storage and violation of service rules and regulations. Almost 50% of them have visible signs of rust damage.”
The UAF General Staff added that, with the current conditions of hostilities in the war, the Russian army will likely suffer from an artillery shortage in the coming months.
“In the conditions of intense hostilities and the existing unsatisfactory state of ammunition, one should expect their shortage in the artillery units of the Russian army within the next 2-3 months,” the UAF General staff said.
It is not the first time the Russian army was reported to be using substandard weapons in its war against Ukraine.
In October of last year, The New York Times revealed that Russia has been using “outdated, unguided and imprecise missiles,” some of which are from the Soviet era, as it runs low on more sophisticated and modern missiles.
In September, adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs Anton Gerashchenko shared a video on Twitter showing Russian soldiers handling rusty firearms and plastic bags to use in the war.
In May, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine said the Russian military has been forced to bring out obsolete T-62 tanks from storage to replace more modern equipment destroyed in the war.
In April, Russian military conscripts from the Donbas regions were only given bolt-action Mosin rifles, which were produced in the 1880s and went out of production following World War II.
