By Kontur and AFP | 2024-04-17

Kyiv's allies are working to shore up support for the Ukrainian army, short on ammunition after battling the Russian invasion for over two years.

Twenty countries have pledged enough to buy 500,000 artillery shells for Ukraine outside Europe within the so-called Czech initiative, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said April 16.

The Czech Republic is spearheading an international fundraising drive to buy ammunition for the Ukrainian army, battling a Russian invasion since February 2022.

European Union nations had promised one million shells by the end of March but have fallen well short in deliveries as their production capacities are limited.

The Czechs said in March they were able to collect a substantial amount of weaponry -- some 800,000 shells in total -- for Ukraine outside the continent.

"I am glad that at this moment, about 20 countries already joined our initiative -- from Canada, Germany and the Netherlands to Poland," Fiala said during his visit to Washington.

"Thanks to them, we can now provide 500,000 rounds of artillery ammunition. We believe that more deliveries will follow," he said in a speech at the Hudson Institute.

Ukraine could get the first shells in June, he said earlier.

The countries taking part also include the Baltic states, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal and Slovenia, Czech media reported.

There is no reason why the donors cannot "deliver one million more in the next 12 months," said Fiala.

"I want to highlight that this initiative is not a one-time project. Our goal is to create a long-term system of ammunition supplies for heavy weapons," he added. "This will directly help to change the situation on the frontline."

The Financial Times said earlier the purchase of 800,000 shells would cost $1.5 billion.

But the sum is roughly twice as high, Tomas Kopecny, Czech commissioner for the reconstruction of Ukraine, told Czech Radio April 16.

Organizers of a Slovak crowdfunding campaign are contributing to the Czech initiative. Thousands of donors already have contributed €575,000 ($610,000) since April 15, when the Peace for Ukraine group launched the initiative, organizers said.

US manufacturing shells

Meanwhile in the United States, the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant (SCAAP) is churning out machinery for Ukraine in brick buildings that are more than a century old.

SCAAP, in Pennsylvania, is making steel tubes for 155mm caliber shells, which are crucial to Kyiv's efforts to face down Moscow's invasion.

The tubes are then sent to Iowa, where they are loaded with explosives.

"The fuse is installed in the field... for security reasons," Richard Hansen, a retired US Navy veteran who has been in charge of the facility since 2009, explained to AFP on April 16 during a tour for a small group of journalists.

The site, initially built in 1908 to construct and maintain steam locomotives, started its new life in munitions after being purchased by the US government in 1953.

Back then, it was used to make ammunition for use in the Korean War. Some of the manufacturing equipment in use today dates back nearly to that time.

The buildings, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, are hardly the picture of 21st century high-tech efficiency. There is no computer-aided automated production here. Artificial intelligence? Forget about it.

The red-hot steel tubes, just formed in three successive forges, are cooling for three hours in racks hanging from a conveyor belt in the factory's basement, before the next phase of production.

The basement is a maze of dark nooks and crannies -- lit up from time to time by flame or searing metal.

Visitors have to pay close attention not to tumble into disused pits or trip on narrow staircases, all while enduring deafening noise -- despite earplugs -- and the smell of hot steel.

The tubes are then treated in a variety of ways -- heat, ultrasound, polishing and submersion in oil, among others -- to remove the tiniest flaw, inside and out, and to identify any defects.

Measurements are checked from all angles several times, using tools that seem like they could be on display in a museum of antique hardware.

Boosting artillery production for Kyiv

At the end of the lines, the tubes are painted, to prevent them from rusting out in storage, and are then assigned a batch number for tracing and identification.

While Hansen is happy to talk about the plant's history or the production process, he is tighter-lipped about the number of tubes produced and how they are used on the battlefield.

The current contract is to make 24,000 tubes a month in three factories in eastern Pennsylvania, and runs until the end of 2027, but production can vary. The terms of the original contract signed in 2019 were not disclosed.

SCAAP is still owned by the government, which signed a contract with US defense and aerospace giant General Dynamics, which has two sites of its own not far from Scranton where 155mm caliber shells and mortars are manufactured.

Another General Dynamics facility should be up and running in Texas this summer, a representative of the group told AFP during the visit, on condition of anonymity.

"Production has not been increased because of the war in Ukraine," Hansen said, though he added that the plant had "a modernization plan to increase production" before the conflict erupted in 2022, set to wrap up in about two years.

The $418 million plan should boost efficiency at SCAAP thanks to much-needed technology upgrades and energy-saving methods, but Hansen says production could be increased at any time if needed.

The US military has signed contracts with other contractors to significantly boost production of artillery for Kyiv by next year.