Russia is producing three times as many artillery shells than the combined totals of the United States and its European allies.
A senior European intelligence official told CNN that Russia has been producing 250,000 shells per month — 3 million per year — while the combined defense-industrial capacities of both the U.S. and NATO limit production to about 1.2 million over the same span. The U.S. military set a goal of 100,000 rounds per month by the end of 2025, CNN reports, but that the goal is now unattainable given the $60 billion in Ukraine funding currently in congressional limbo.
The report comes as Russia gains the upper hand in its invasion of Ukraine, having recently captured the city of Avdiivka in the Donbas region. A NATO official told CNN that artillery is the most important aspect of the ongoing war, saying it is in that area where Russia has both “a significant production advantage” and “a significant advantage on the battlefield.”
The report also mentions that, aside from its own domestic production, Russia has imported large quantities of munitions. Iran sent Russia at least 300,000 artillery shells and North Korea delivered at least 6,700 containers carrying millions, according to the NATO official.
While U.S. and NATO leaders have said they do not expect Russia to make significant gains during a forthcoming offensive, Putin has recently begun targeting Ukrainian weapons factories with long-range missiles and drones.
“If we were talking about this last fall, we would have talked about how they were targeting critical infrastructure,” the NATO official told CNN. “Now what we see is some critical infrastructure targeting, but also a lot of targeting the Ukrainian defense industrial base.”
Russia has produced 115 to 130 long-range missiles and 300 to 350 attack drones a month — both based on Iranian models — which it has used to overpower Ukrainian defense systems. The NATO official also said, though, that Russia’s long-range-missile stockpile, numbering in the thousands before the invasion began, has declined to around 700.
Russia’s economy has shifted from relying on oil to defense production, the official said, which it will be able to sustain for the next 18 months.