Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence: Ukraine is inferior to russia in artillery war and needs more weapons from the West

Deputy Chief of Defense  Intelligence Vadym Skibitskyi said that the current war in Ukraine was mostly artillery, so Ukraine is losing to russia at the forefront and needs more weapons from the west.

The Guardian reports.

"Now, this is an artillery war, and we are losing in terms of artillery. Now everything depends on what it gives us (West – ed.). Ukraine has one artillery installation for 10-15 Russian artillery installations. Our Western partners gave us about 10% of what they have," Skibitskyi said.

"This is an artillery war now," said Vadym Skibitskyi. The frontlines were now where the future would be decided, he told the Guardian, "and we are losing in terms of artillery."

"Everything now depends on what [the west] gives us. Ukraine has one artillery piece to 10 to 15 Russian artillery pieces. Our western partners have given us about 10% of what they have," said Skibitskyi.

Ukraine uses 5,000 to 6,000 artillery rounds a day, according to Skibitskyi. Currently, Ukrainian defenders are using standard NATO 155-caliber projectiles.

Skibitskyi added, "Europe is also delivering lower-caliber shells, but as Europe runs out, the amount is getting smaller."

The intelligence representative stressed the need for the west to supply Ukraine with long-range missile systems to destroy russian artillery guns from afar.

The Guardian notes that, according to Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksii Arestovych, Ukraine needed 60 multiple-rocket launchers–many more than the handful promised by the UK and US–to have a chance of defeating russia.

According to the publication, Ukraine intends to ask the west for a list of weapons and defense equipment at a meeting of the NATO Contact Group in Brussels on June 15.

Skibitskyi believes that soon, the war will remain mostly artillery, and the number of missile attacks by russia will remain at the current level of 10-14 launches per day.

"We have noticed that Russia is carrying out far fewer rocket attacks, and it has used H-22 rockets; they are old 1970s Soviet rockets," said Skibitskyi. "This shows that russia is running low on rockets." According to his estimates, the occupiers have already spent about 60% of their missile reserves, and russia cannot produce new ones quickly because of sanctions.

Skibitskyi also said that russia was currently using long-range bombers to strike at Ukraine, which can reach anywhere in Ukraine without leaving russian airspace.

As for the three front lines, most of the russian forces are now in the Donbas and trying to reach the administrative borders of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

In northeastern Ukraine, near Kharkiv, russian forces, according to Skibitskyi, focused their efforts on defense after a successful counterattack by Ukrainian defenders.

At the same time, in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, which russia has almost wholly occupied, russian troops are digging in and building double, sometimes triple, lines of defense.

"It will now be harder to get that territory back," said Skibitsky. "And that's why we need weapons."

The intelligence spokesman stressed that if the russians succeed in the Donbas, they could use the territory for a new offensive on Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipro because putin's goal is "the whole of Ukraine and more."