Journalist: Ukraine lost 40% of its ammunition during recent depo explosions
Ukraine has lost about forty percent of its entire arsenal of ammunition because of warehouse explosions over the past year and a half. In his article for Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, Ukrainian journalist Yury Butusov writes that more than 210,000 tons of ammunition were destroyed, from pistol ammo to the OTR-21 Tochka ballistic missiles during recent explosions at the storage facilities in Ichnia.
For comparison, Butusov notes that during the five years of war in the Donbas, the Armed Forces of Ukraine used approximately 70,000 tons of ammunition. Butusov said that buying ammunition abroad will cost hundreds of millions of dollars so it will be impossible to compensate for the losses soon.
The journalist accused the Ukrainian authorities of negligence in managing the ammunition warehouses.
In Ichnia, according to him, there was no video surveillance system.
“On the territory of the base, there isn’t any video surveillance system at all. It is astounding, but, with multiple requests to install a video surveillance system after the disaster in Kalynivka, which have been made for over a year, even the simplest cameras have not been installed. There are no means of control to allow a prompt decision-making,” he wrote.
According to Butusov, there was not enough security personnel at the ammunition warehouse to cover the entire area of the facility and no aerial protection at all.
Earlier, Verkhovna Rada Deputy Serhiy Pashynskyi reported that over the past two and a half years, the explosions destroyed more than $2 billion worth of ammunition in Ukraine.