April 24, 2025: By early 2023 Ukrainian soldiers noticed reduced use of artillery by the Russians. This was apparently because so many of the Russian shells and rockets were duds and don’t explode when they hit the ground. Ukrainian troops learned how to use their artillery ammo carefully because NATO nations did not have as much to provide as Russia already had. That’s because the Russians maintained larger stockpiles of munitions and had a lot older munitions that could be used somewhat safely by Russian artillerymen. Unfortunately, more shells failed to explode or impact where they were supposed to.

For the first six months of the war Russia was able to fire a lot more shells and rockets at the Ukrainians than the Ukrainians were capable of responding to. That changed because Russia, like the NATO nations supplying Ukraine, began running out of artillery ammunition. Now existing inventories are largely gone and munitions firms worldwide have all the business they could handle.

A peculiarly Russian artillery problem is that it could no longer produce enough tube artillery barrel liners to replace those worn out in war, because those required specialty steel alloys that Russia had lost the ability to produce after the Soviet Union died. Post-Soviet Russia chose instead to buy most of its needs for such steel alloys from the West and the supply of those was cut off by Western sanctions. Russia’s own ability to produce new barrel liners is at most several hundred a year. Almost all Russian tube artillery barrel liners for 152mm or larger guns have been so worn out that those guns are more of a threat to their crews than the enemy. Russia may have some 122mm tube artillery pieces with useable barrel liners but the range of those is only 10 kilometers, and Ukrainian UAVs have made any sort of artillery or motor vehicles within 15-20 km of the front lines death traps for their crews.

Russia did not have enough munitions manufacturing capability left, following years of run-down after the Soviet Union collapsed, to replace what had been expended against or destroyed by the Ukrainians. To reduce Russian use of artillery, the Ukrainians spent a lot of effort to find and attack Russian ammo stocks. In addition the Ukrainians captured a lot of Russian munitions and promptly used those on the Russians in places like Kharkiv. There the Ukrainian use of artillery was a major factor in the Russian defeat.

Russia has few foreign sources of munitions and those sources also encountered problems. For example, North Korea sold Russia large quantities of shells, much of it near its critical use by date. Eventually Russia was getting 50 percent of its artillery munitions from North Korea. These shipments included smaller numbers of 125mm shells for tank guns. There were rumors that many of the North Korean shells were elderly and, according to South Korean intelligence, often unreliable as well. All this information was available to the Russians who either ignored it or were desperate to get the 152mm artillery and 115mm tank gun ammunition. Russia is also using elderly T-62 tanks and their 115mm guns to provide artillery support for Russian infantry.

These munitions were moved to Ukraine via the Trans-Siberian railroad. Russia was having problems lately with that rail line and that has delayed some of the North Korea shipments. Another source was Iran, which didn’t have as much to spare as North Korea but was able to get it to the Russians quickly.

That left neighboring Belarus, which Russia has pressured to enter the war to assist Russian forces in Ukraine. The Belarussian leader is pro-Russia but most Belarussians are not and support Ukraine. Because of that, Belarus did send troops into Ukraine but Belarussian ammo stocks and manufacturing capabilities are available. As with Iran and North Korea, Belarus had to be paid

Another problem Russia encountered was that the shelf life of most munitions varies from 5-20 years, depending on the shell casing, fuze, electronics, batteries or propellant. Artillery shells and rockets use various types of explosives, notably as propellants, that degrade over time. Western nations spend a lot of money to remove elderly munitions by recycling them. This is expensive but it is a major reason why Western munitions are more reliable and less dangerous for users.

When the Cold War ended in 1991, Western nations were able to safely dispose of munitions that were too old to be safe and reliable. Russia had more of these munitions and little cash or sense of urgency in safely disposing of their elderly artillery shells and rockets. Storage facilities containing these expired munitions eventually began to randomly explode. Russia then sought to dispose of the oldest and most unstable munitions in controlled explosions that did not destroy structures and kill or injure nearby military or civilian personnel. Russia keeps track of how old munitions are and knows which munitions recently passed their use-by date and can be safely delivered to artillery units for use. This is one reason why Ukrainians experience many Russian shells and rockets fired at them that are very inaccurate and often do not detonate when they land. For Russian artillerymen, a few of these shells and rockets explode when fired, often killing or injuring members of the gun crew.

After 1991 major nations continued maintaining millions of tons of munitions as War Reserve Stocks, to provide a 30–60-day supply of ammo for the opening stages of a major war because it takes over a month for fresh supplies to begin arriving from factories. Constantly replacing elderly munitions from the War Reserve leaves you with a constant supply of older munitions that have to be used or disposed of. Not too long ago, the old munitions would be dumped at sea, usually in very deep water. But that is not considered ecologically correct these days. The expense of taking apart and recycling the components is often the cheapest way to deal with the problem. Western firms that specialize in recycling elderly munitions but since 2022 have not been available to Russia. As a result Russia continued to have spontaneous explosions in munitions storage sites. In 2022, some of those explosions took place while Russian troops were moving those shells out of storage. These munitions were eventually loaded on trains and shipped to the Russian forces in Ukraine.