By AFP | 2024-01-22

KYIV -- The European Union (EU) says it will drastically increase its ammunition production this year in response to Ukraine's growing pleas for support in its ongoing war with Russia.

The EU will be able to produce at least 1.3 million rounds of ammunition by the end of this year, said EU internal market commissioner Thierry Breton on January 19.

"We are at a crucial moment for our collective security in Europe, and in the war of aggression run by Russia in Ukraine, Europe must and will continue to support Ukraine with all its means," Breton told reporters during a visit to Estonia.

By March or April, the 27 EU nations will reach a production capacity target for one million ammunition shells each year, he added.

"We will continue to enhance our production capacity, probably around 1.3 to 1.4 million... at the end of this year and continue to increase significantly next year," he said.

"We need to make sure that most of this [these weapons] is coming to Ukraine in priority. Because this is where there is an urgent need," said Breton.

'Pressing' need for ammunition

On January 18, Ukraine stated its "pressing" need for ammunition. On the following day, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba made a call for greater efforts to stop Russia from sourcing weapons parts for its offensive.

"The West must get serious about strangling Russia's ability to produce weapons," Kuleba said in a social media post.

"According to some data, up to 95% of the foreign-produced critical components found in Russian weapons destroyed in Ukraine come from Western countries," he added.

Kuleba did not provide evidence for his claim, but Kyiv regularly disassembles Russian missiles and drones that fall on its territory and analyzes their components.

On the war front, Ukraine staged an attack that sparked a major inferno at an oil depot in western Russia, a Ukrainian security service told AFP.

The attack targeted a depot in Klintsy, some 70km (about 45 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

The strike was the second on a Russian oil depot in two days, after Kyiv said it had hit an oil storage facility in the northern Leningrad region on Thursday.

In reaction to strikes on Ukrainian territory, Kyiv has targeted Russian oil and gas infrastructure since Moscow's attack on Ukraine almost two years ago.

'Clumsy manipulation'

Without providing evidence, Moscow has claimed that it has killed a group of French mercenaries in a strike on the northeastern town of Kharkiv.

Dozens of fighters were killed in the late night January 22 attack on Kharkiv, which Russian forces have been shelling since February 2022, Russian officials have said.

But France's foreign ministry denied the claim and described it as "another clumsy Russian manipulation".

Paris has been a key ally of Kyiv's since Russia's assault on Ukraine's soil. French President Emmanuel Macron announced in mid-January that his country planned on sending dozens of long-range missiles to Ukraine.

In a January 19 speech, Macron urged defense manufacturers to boost production to increase arms supplies for Ukraine.

"We must amplify the transformation we have begun" to respond more quickly to Ukraine's needs, Macron said in his New Year's address to the French armed forces.

"We can't let Russia think that it can win," Macron added, warning that "a Russian victory would mean the end of European security".