Ukraine began 2024 on the defensive and Kyiv’s battlefield prospects are dimming further as Republicans in the US Congress appear increasingly to be intent on blocking future military aid. If Europe does not plug the gap, Ukraine risks slow-motion defeat from 2025.

A simple figure sums up the problem. Ukraine is once again being outgunned in this near two-year-old war: the current estimate is that Russia is firing 10,000 artillery shells a day to Ukraine’s 2,000, a dismal ratio that may yet worsen in the absence of future US gifts of ammunition.

A recent report on the UK’s Sky News highlighted a group of Ukrainian gunners with the 22nd brigade, operating between Chasiv Yar and Russian-held Bakhmut, and featured their pleas for help and limited stockpiles of shells. Their Soviet-standard 152mm gun was fired only three times in a night to protect the supplies available.

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