New Western Reports Reveal Vast Russian Expansion in Barrel and Shell Production
Pro-Ukrainian analysts have released several new reports on Russian military production that are worthy of analysis. One particular report on Russian artillery production is most noteworthy given the technological crossroads the war has reached, wherein many observers believe drones have completely eclipsed the traditional role of artillery and other classical weapons systems.
Firstly, there is the new report from the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service that is a general think-tank hit-piece on Russia from a broad geopolitical standpoint. Of biggest interest is its section on Russian arms, and particularly artillery, production.
A WSJ correspondent summarizes the main findings:
There are many findings here which are damning to NATO’s defense industries.
For instance, Russia’s total artillery shell procurement for 2025 was 3.4 million, according to the report. This represents all three major types of artillery: 122mm (for 2S1 Gvozdikas, and the like), 152mm, and 204mm (2S7 Pions). It claims North Korea supplies several million additional yearly shells, though this includes tank rounds, mortars, etc.
Recall we heard all kinds of fantasies for years about how both the US and Europe’s artillery production was slated to dramatically increase, yet not a peep is heard anymore. This is likely because both have plateaued due to lack of funding and optimism from defense companies which secretly realized Ukraine will not last long enough for their investments in production to yield any ROIs.
The most important finding is that Russia is producing so much ammunition it is refilling its strategic supply:
Russia’s military-industrial complex has increased artillery ammunition production more than seventeen-fold since 2021.
Russia is highly likely to rebuild part of its strategic artillery-ammunition stockpiles – in effect preparing for its next war – even as its aggression against Ukraine continues.
Russia’s explosives industry has highly likely reduced its dependence on imported raw materials, though significant vulnerabilities remain in its supply chains.
Again we see this theme we’ve heard before, that Russia is regenerating so much ammo, armor, manpower, etc., that they must be “preparing for the next war”.
I have stated many times that, of course, in light of NATO’s aggression, provocations, and open threats against Russian interests—both of the naval, in the case of tanker fleets, and territorial, in the case of Kaliningrad, etc., varieties—Russia is building a large rear reserve force as a deterrence and safeguard against perceived future NATO attack.
Russia has reduced the current war to a kind of ‘status quo’ which allows it to prosecute the war almost on “auto-pilot”—so to speak—which is another way of saying that it has systematized the war and reduced it to a series of mathematical expressions and certainties. This is all an extension of the Soviet Correlation of Forces and Means (COFM) calculations which provide an algorithmic assurance for victory by reducing the analysis of the conflict into simple and predictive equations.
The other thing the report concludes is that Russian 152mm artillery rounds still average around 1,000 euros in price, while the NATO equivalent is four to five times higher.
However, the unit cost to Russia remains comparatively low. For example, an older-model 152 mm shell costs less than 100,000 roubles (about 1,050 euros) in state procurement, which is several times cheaper than similar 155 mm shells produced in Western countries. Such low prices are achieved at the expense of profitability across the state-owned enterprises that make up the supply chain, all of which rely on regular subsidies and other state support.
For the past year or more, pro-UA analysts have claimed that Ukraine has essentially ‘equalized’ Russian artillery advantages. However, a new analysis from a Western expert shows that Russian artillery usage empirically dwarfs that of the AFU on all but a small section of the front, where Ukraine likely concentrates most of its remaining assets.
The satellite analysis from Clement Molin maps over 12,000 artillery strikes along the entire LOC. It was done recently after a major snow cover, which made it conveniently possible to visualize new strikes, given that the exact date of the snow cover could be estimated, and as such, the new artillery shell craters in that snow are able to be accurately dated and catalogued.
You can read the more detailed findings yourself at the link above, but the main cover photo pretty much tells the whole story alone at a glance:
What you see above is that only on the Gulyaipole front—where apparently the AFU has concentrated its remaining artillery—there is an appreciable amount of Ukrainian strikes happening behind the LOC on Russian-held territory. On the other visible stretches of the front, Russian artillery strikes dwarf the Ukrainian ones probably to a count of 20:1 or even 50:1.
Several inserts from the report make this even more obvious—here in west Zaporozhye near the Dnepr river:
Here slightly to the east of that, near Orekhov:
Even on some portions of the Gulyaipole front, the disparity is overwhelming:
First, with Hulialpole. The number of impacts is extremely high, part of them are on the russian controled territory, most in Ukrainian controled.
The ones in the middle are both russians (to destroy ukrainian positions) and ukrainians (to fight russian assaults.
He later updated with another 8,000 mapped strikes:
Forget the lies about Ukraine reaching parity: it’s clear when it comes to artillery, Russia’s disparity is on the order of 20-50:1. What likely logical conclusion does that give us about casualties? Recall, even Syrsky has recently admitted that Russia and Ukrainian drone numbers are equal. So if they’re equal in drones, but unequal in artillery and airpower to an astronomical count, how could their casualties be anywhere near similar?
Here a Ukrainian commander recently stated Russia has a definitive advantage in signals intelligence on the front:
Colonel Ihor Obolienskyi, Commander of Ukraine's 2nd Khartia Corps:
On the battlefield, Russia currently has a qualitative advantage in SIGINT and electronic warfare. This advantage is real and significant.They also dominate what we call the “low sky” — short-range, low-altitude radar coverage. They have a lot of such radars, they mass-produce them, and they still have access to components. They are doing this effectively and at scale.
Another arguably even more interesting report was released from a Ukrainian analytical firm which covers the production expansion of Russian artillery barrels, rather than shells. Recall that the production of barrels has been an even more hotly debated topic, given that no one ever really questioned Russia’s ability to pump out huge amounts of shells. But in the case of barrels, it was claimed Russia lacked the heavy equipment necessary to build more than a few “dozen” per year, which I had many times debunked in the past.
The report:
