Western officials doubt that Ukraine will be able to take back all the land it has lost since the invasion began. After all, the war has shown how much easier it is to defend than attack, and Russian forces are well dug in
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskIn the early days of the invasion the West worried that Ukrainian forces would be swiftly overwhelmed by Russia’s superior firepower and resistance would collapse.
Russia still has plenty of munitions and equipment, says Richard Connolly, an expert on the country’s economy and defence industry. Russian arms factories are said to be working double or triple shifts, he notes. Russia also has large stockpiles of old tanks to draw on. Over time, shortages will bite, but they are more likely to lead to the deployment of outmoded or poorly maintained weapons than to a total drought, Mr Connolly believes.Manpower is a bigger problem.
But this optimism glosses over several yawning pitfalls. For one thing, Ukraine’s forces have used most of their munitions and, without the domestic manufacturing capacity to replenish them, are now completely reliant on foreign benefactors. The recent fighting has centred on long, heavy artillery barrages that consume vast amounts of ammunition.
It is not just weapons that Ukraine will need to pursue such a strategy, however; the government is also desperately short of money. The war has smashed its economy: the central bank and thereckon that output could shrink by more than a third this year—a blow on a par with the Depression in America in the 1930s.
The shortage of critical components is a worry for Russia’s generals, too. “We have reports from Ukrainians that when they find Russian military equipment on the ground, it’s filled with semiconductors that they took out of dishwashers and refrigerators”, Gina Raimondo, America’s commerce secretary, told Congress in May. Although some Russian firms do make computer chips, and are trying to boost output, their wares are more expensive and less sophisticated than imported ones.
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