Russia’s ability to outmatch Ukraine with artillery barrages on the battlefield has significantly reduced to just 1.5 Russian rounds for every Ukrainian shell fired back, Western officials have said.
This compares with Russian forces launching at least five times as many artillery rounds as Ukraine could in the war previously – with the ratio at times much higher even than that.
The Western officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, put the levelling out down to a “wide variety of factors”.
These factors include limitations in Russia’s defence production lines, difficulties with transporting more rounds to the frontline by rail, and strikes by Ukrainian drones against strategic stockpiles of Russian and North Korean ammunition supplies inside Russia.
In addition, they said Western supplies of ammunition were helping to bolster Ukraine’s armoury.
However, vast quantities of Russian glide bombs appear to be compensating for the reduction in the country’s advantage on the artillery front, the Western officials signalled.
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Army could be ‘worn out in a year’
One official said there had been a “massive increase in Russian glide bomb use on the frontline to devastating effect”.
They said Russian forces were still gaining ground in Ukraine but at a terrible cost.
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The Western officials repeated earlier Ukrainian claims that Russia lost more than 2,000 troops, killed or injured, in a single day last month fighting against Ukraine – the highest casualty rate of the war.
Moscow has consistently dismissed Russian casualty estimates by Ukraine and its allies.
The Kremlin does not publish up-to-date figures. Ukraine is also secretive about its losses.
One of the Western officials said the figures “speak to the brutality of the frontline – very Somme-esque”.
The Battle of the Somme in France was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the First World War.
The Western official said Russian forces suffered 2,030 casualties on 28 November – “a new war high” and the first time the rate of dead and wounded had breached the 2,000-mark.
The official said the average daily rate of Russian dead and injured in Ukraine for the whole of November had topped 1,500 for a third straight month, putting the average at 1,523 personnel.