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Russia is facing a munitions shortage in its invasion of Ukraine, according to the British Ministry of Defence.
“Despite easing its immediate manpower shortage, the lack of munitions remains a major limiting factor on Russian offensive operations,” the ministry said in an intelligence update on Saturday.
“Russia has likely limited its long-range missile strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure to once a week due to the limited availability of cruise missiles,” the ministry said. “Similarly, Russia is unlikely to have increased its arsenal of artillery weapons sufficiently to enable large-scale offensive operations.”
The British Ministry of Defense said Russia was vulnerable due to a lack of munitions. “The weakness of Russia’s current operational design is that even just sustaining defensive operations on its long front line requires a significant daily expenditure of shells and rockets.”
The US House of Representatives approved a $45 billion aid package for Ukraine on Friday. A portion of the $1.66 trillion government funding bill, passed by the Senate a day earlier, will now go to US President Joe Biden to be signed into law. The package follows nearly $50 billion in US aid sent to Ukraine earlier this year.
The move follows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wartime visit to Washington this week.
Upon his return to Kiev, Zelensky boasted that Ukrainian forces were “working towards victory” despite Russia’s relentless artillery, rocket and mortar fire and airstrikes on Ukraine.
“We will overcome everything,” Zelensky promised on a telegram. He also said, “We’re coming back from Washington … something that will really help.”
The US promised Patriot missiles to help Ukraine fight Russian aggression. Zelensky has long called for Patriot missiles to counter Russian airstrikes, which have destroyed cities, towns and villages during the 10-month conflict and cut off electricity and water supplies across the country in the past three months.
Zelensky thanked Biden and the US Congress for supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
US officials say, however, that the single Patriot battery that Biden promised to supply to Ukraine will not change the course of the war.
Washington and its allies are unwilling to supply Kiev with modern battle tanks and long-range missiles called ATACMS, which can reach far behind the front lines and into Russia itself.
Both Kiev and the Biden administration are wary that maintaining US congressional support for aid could become more complicated after Republicans regain a slim majority in the House in the new year: Few right-wing Republicans oppose the aid, and other lawmakers have called for a tighter budget. supervision
During a visit Friday to Tula, Russia, a center for arms production, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the country’s defense industry chiefs to do more to ensure the Russian army quickly receives all the weapons, equipment and military hardware it needs to fight in Ukraine. .
“The most important task of our military-industrial complex is to provide our units and front-line forces with everything they need: weapons, equipment, ammunition and gear in the required quantity and of the right quality in the shortest possible time frame,” he said.
Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslawa Gongdez contributed to this report. Some content for this article came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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