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Putin Just Exhausted the Last of Russia’s Advanced Munitions
Russia rained cruise missiles on busy Ukrainian cities on Monday in what the United States called “horrific strikes”, killing civilians, and knocking out electricity.
This was, presumably, Putin’s response to the “terrorist” bombing of the Kerch Strait Bridge — which Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for (but did celebrate).
But Putin’s temper tantrum has a silver lining: He has essentially used up most of what’s left of Russia’s advanced munitions.
Hope it was worth it, Vlad.
The common myth is that Russia has a massive defense industrial base and huge stockpiles of ammunition would give it an advantage in a war of attrition.
Yet, a recent U.S. intelligence report, suggests Russia is now buying ammunition from North Korea.
This casts doubt on Russia’s ability to put rounds downrange.
The truth is that Russia’s ammo is running low.
Breaking Defense claims that Russian shells for artillery and armored vehicles will be exhausted by the end of the year.
But it’s also their advanced munitions — Kalibr cruise missiles and other precision weaponry — that are running dangerously low thanks, in part, to U.S. sanctions that prohibit Russia from accessing microchips made by companies such as Intel, Marvell, Micron, Broadcom, and Texas Instruments.
The U.S. government even told Nvidia and AMD to stop selling AI and machine learning accelerator chips to China, based on concerns China could resell those chips to Russia.
For its part, China has refused to get involved beyond the diplomatic field, leaving Moscow dependent on North Korea for shells and Iran for drones.
But it’s not just the Kalibr in short supply. Putin’s inability to source microchips is also having an impact on Russia’s hypersonic weapons — the Avangard, the Kinzhal, and the Tsirkon/Zircon.
In May, researchers from the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) group conducted an independent analysis of Russian military hardware during a week-long visit to Ukraine.
The researchers discovered that almost all the equipment contained parts…
