A senior US official has said that Russia is using 40-year-old ammunition, and as a result is facing a high failure rate.
“They are pulling out ammunition from obsolete stockpiles, which shows that they are willing to use that older ammunition, some of which was produced more than 40 years ago,” said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“In other words, they use the ammunition and cross their fingers and hope it goes off or explodes when it falls,” the unnamed official added.
He estimates that Russia will use up its fully usable stockpile of ammunition by early 2023, if it does not use foreign suppliers and old stockpiles.
“We appreciate this in relation to the speed with which Russia used its artillery and rocket munitions, that is, its fully serviceable artillery and munitions. They can probably do this by early 2023,” the official concluded.
Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted in November that the weapons used by the Russian military need to be modernized.
Ukraine is probably not facing such a problem of obsolete weapons because Western allies supplied Kiev with arms supplies through military aid after the invasion began.
So last month, the United States approved sending an additional $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, including weapons, ammunition and air defense equipment.