Mind the spin, this is almost Pro-Russian Propaganda:
Ukraine Burns Through Ammunition in Bakhmut, Putting Future Fights at Risk
The military is using thousands of artillery shells a day as it tries to hold the eastern city, which could jeopardize a planned springtime campaign.
The Ukrainian military is firing thousands of artillery shells a day as it tries to hold the eastern city of Bakhmut, a pace that American and European officials say is unsustainable and could jeopardize a planned springtime campaign that they hope will prove decisive.The bombardment has been so intense that the Pentagon raised concerns with Kyiv recently after several days of nonstop artillery firing, two U.S. officials said, highlighting the tension between Ukraine’s decision to defend Bakhmut at all costs and its hopes for retaking territory in the spring. One of those officials said the Americans warned Ukraine against wasting ammunition at a key time.
With so much riding on a Ukrainian counteroffensive, the United States and Britain are preparing to ship thousands of NATO and Soviet-type artillery rounds and rockets to help shore up supplies for a coming Ukrainian offensive.
But a senior American defense official described that as a “last-ditch effort” because Ukraine’s allies do not have enough ammunition to keep up with Ukraine’s pace and their stocks are critically low. Western manufacturers are ramping up production, but it will take many months for new supplies to begin meeting demand.This has put Kyiv in an increasingly perilous position: Its troops are likely to have one meaningful opportunity this year to go on the offensive, push back Russian forces and retake land that was occupied after the invasion began last year. And they will probably have do it while contending with persistent ammunition shortages.
It gets worse:
Adding to the uncertainty, Ukrainian casualties have been so severe that commanders will have to decide whether to send units to defend Bakhmut or use them in a spring offensive, several of the officials said. Many of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
They go into the narrative of Ukraine Win, but not long after the Copium Hopium spin:
“We need shells for mortars,” a Ukrainian soldier fighting in Bakhmut said in recent days. He said his battalion had not been resupplied. A Ukrainian tank commander, whose T-80 tank has been used in the city’s defense, said he had barely any tank ammunition left.
Another commander in a brigade that has been instrumental in holding Bakhmut posted on Facebook on Tuesday that there was a “catastrophic shortage of shells.” He described an incident in which his unit disabled an advanced Russian T-90 tank but was prohibited from firing artillery to finish it off because “it’s too expensive.”
The Pentagon estimated that Ukraine was firing several thousand artillery shells a day across the 600-mile front line, which includes Bakhmut, a city that is almost surrounded by Russian troops. Moscow’s forces control roughly half the city and are encroaching on the supply lines the Ukrainians need to defend the rest.
The United States hopes to produce 90,000 artillery shells per month, but that is likely to take two years. The European Union is pooling resources to manufacture and buy about a million shells. That, too, will take time. And a secret British task force is leading an effort to find and buy Soviet-style ammunition, which Ukraine primarily relies on, from around the world.
Leave it to a secret task force published about in the blowhard of blowhards among Empire Propagandists, to get it done.
Some more spin later:
But numbers alone do not tell the story of Bakhmut, the site of one of the war’s bloodiest battles. The Kremlin-backed Wagner paramilitary group is using units of former prisoners to break through Ukrainian lines. That means battle-hardened troops from Ukraine are dying as they defend the city against less trained Russian foot soldiers.
So much for defensive advantage, untrained, unequiped, former prisoner, taking heavily entrenched and defended positions from "battle-hardened troops". Can you say UkRetard?
Some copium later it concludes:
He [Camille Grand, a defense expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations and former NATO’s assistant secretary general for defense investment] added: “Is it correct to assess that the Ukrainians are tapping into their reserves, putting them in a more difficult position to do this open artillery barrage that would be needed to start an offensive against fortified Russian lines elsewhere?
“That’s the big question now.”
The bigger question is how will Ukraine hold ANY of its advances should their spring hopeffensive turn out to be some spectacular result? How can they hold the Russians after their spring offensive, when the Russians will almost certainly not stop this war which they consider an existential threat to their people?
Read the Copium spin here:
https://archive.is/rBx8C