Salm made his remarks in an interview published last week to Defense One and conducted at the Estonian Embassy in Washington.

Even as European munitions production is getting more rapid, orders placed for Ukraine are still taking take a year or more to reach that country, Salm noted.

Ukraine has been reporting shortages of shells and in particular the key 155mm-caliber shells since late last year, just as Russian forces pressed home their assault on the strategically important eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, just outside Donestsk.

While media reports have been comparatively muted on the topic, Avdiivka in effect fell at the weekend after two years of holding out.

Meanwhile Europe is set to deliver successfully just over half of the one million 155mm rounds it pledged to deliver to Ukraine by March 2024, EU EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said last month (the shortfall, perhaps plus a little more, is reportedly due to be made good by year-end).

Even as European munitions production is getting more rapid – last year, the French parliament had cited delivery times of up to 20 months – orders placed for Ukraine are still taking take a year or more to reach that country, according to the Estonian defense ministry. 

Kusti Salm told Defense One that: "If we would go under contract today, then it's 12 to 18 months" talking about 155mm shells.

Supplying Ukraine with 155mm shells from outside the EU on the other hand has proven challenging, Salm said, partly due to a desire to "buy European," exacerbated by another "elephant in the room," namely "the willingness of third countries to actually sell," Salm added.

"This is something that needs a lot of effort to overturn," he told Defense One, "I would assume that a lot of this is associated with international relations with Russia."

Many countries have provided Ukraine with munitions, but these have tended to date back to the Cold War era, and indeed in some cases ironically have been actual Soviet weaponry.

In any case, Salm said, such stocks are "drying out," as the invasion nears its second anniversary.

Salm put the cost on average of a 155mm shell at around US$5,000 (around €4630), Salm said – though a US Army spokesperson put the figure at around US$3,000 (approx. €2,780) for an M795 high explosive shell, albeit the most basic type.

Both Borrell and Salm have stressed that Europe has stepped up its munitions output; Borrell cited a growth rate of 40 percent since February 2022.

As widely reported, Denmark has pledged its entire artillery shell stockpiles to Ukraine following last weekend's Munich Security Conference.

Borrell has said that by year-end, European shell output capacity will be around 1.4 million per year, for 155mm rounds alone.

The US could roughly match this rate, Congress approval pending, making for 2.6 million 155mm shells per year by the end of next year, from the US and the European countries together.

Outside of Europe, Pakistan, India and South Korea all make these types of shells (of these, Pakistan has exhibited warm relations towards Russia in the past, while India has strong strategic relations with the Kremlin, dating back to the Cold War).

Defense One cited Russian production capacity for 152mm rounds, the Soviet equivalent of the 155mm, is estimated to grow to 1.3 million per year, by the end of this year.

An Estonian-authored roadmap for a Ukrainian victory published in December calls for more training for Ukrainian staff officers, on the back of a statement by security think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) that operational planning has been hampered by a lack of qualified leaders, in addition to munitions aid.

Defense One mainly covers the future of U.S. defense and international security and has been in operation for over a decade.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!