Ukraine warns of ammo shortage as Russia announces capture of village

Ukraine has warned its US-led Western allies that the Kiev forces were running out of ammunition, while Russian troops have made fresh military advancements on the war front.

Ukraine's war minister told Kiev's Western allies on Thursday that the Kiev forces were facing a "very real and pressing" ammo shortage.

"A shortage of ammunition is a very real and pressing problem that our armed forces are facing at present," Ukraine Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said in a message posted on X, formerly Twitter, after speaking by video link to a gathering of allies led by France and the United States.

The Ukrainian official claimed that Kiev's Western allies had formed a new "artillery coalition" to supply Kiev's troops with more ammo. "The artillery coalition is aimed at solving this issue."

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Since Russia launched its special military operation in Donbas in February 2022, the US-led Western allies have supplied Kiev with multiple shipments of guns and ammo worth billions of dollars.

However, Kiev has been asking for more.

In this regard, French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced on Thursday that Paris will take charge of Kiev's ammo shortage issue, leading an ammunition and missile production coalition to meet the ammunition demands of the Kiev forces.

Lecornu added that the newly-formed "artillery coalition aimed to strengthen military support for Kiev, both in the short and long term.”

“We need to switch to a logic of production, which makes it possible to connect the North American and European defense systems, and the Ukrainian army,” Lecornu further added.

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“It is an important shift that depends on our ability to go into a war economy which is a way of production, management of stocks, organization of workload, to respond to meet the delivery delays requirements of a customer at war,” he added.

The step comes after Western countries vowed this autumn to better organize their armaments and ammunition production in a bid to not only keep up the huge supply of arms and ammunition to Ukraine but also, increase the provision of weaponry and munitions to the Kiev forces fighting a proxy war against Russia on behalf of the US-led Western countries.

Despite, the ally countries’ huge shipments of weapons and munitions to Ukraine, the Kiev forces have failed to make any significant progress on the frontline, prompting Western politicians to raise doubts and cost-and-benefit questions regarding continuing the proxy war against Russia.

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Russia has repeatedly warned Western politicians against the continued supply of arms and munitions to Ukraine, pointing out that such measures will not stop Russian troops from reaching their military objectives and that arming Kiev would only prolong the conflict.

Meanwhile, the Russians announced on Thursday that their troops had captured the small village of Vesele, 20km northeast of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine.

"In the Donetsk direction, as a result of successful actions of Southern Group troop units, the settlement of Vesele in the Donetsk People's Republic was liberated," Russia's Defense Ministry announced.

The pro-Moscow Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in Donbas held referendums in September 2022, separating from eastern Ukraine and joining Russia.

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