Yurri Clavilier & Michael Gjerstad
While 2024 was a difficult year for Ukraine on the battlefield, its armed forces have managed to limit Russian territorial advances and inflict significant losses. These outcomes, achieved despite Ukraine’s acute shortage of ammunition in the first half of 2024 and manpower difficulties, show that Russia’s successes on the battlefield are certainly not decisive.
Equipped but not staffed: Ukraine’s challenge for 2025Ukraine’s armed forces are not currently facing a critical situation with regards to equipment; however, they will likely need significantly more weapons, especially modern Western-made systems, to reliably stop Russian assaults. Launching offensives and liberating occupied territory would require considerably more materiel. If the West were to reduce or halt its support, the situation would seriously degrade in the medium term.
Three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the first results of joint ventures, partner programmes and larger contracts between Ukraine and various defence companies and governments in the West are progressively bearing fruit. These will likely pick up steam throughout 2025. Furthermore, Ukraine’s own defence industry has been able to adapt, producing some key equipment at scale, such as the 2S22 Bohdana self-propelled artillery system at a reported production rate of 16 per month. This can be seen from the diverse range of units across the Ground Forces, National Guard and Marines equipped with the 2S22.
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