Vladimir Putin’s troops in Ukraine are experiencing considerable setbacks in their advance because of defective, low-quality artillery.
Russia is believed to have been relying on supplies from North Korea following Kim Jong-un’s meeting with Putin in September.
According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the shells Pyongyang has been providing have proved to be substandard.
They argued the Russian Army’s efforts on the battlefront had been directly affected by the shells, which they claimed also caused direct harm to Russian troops.
Moscow has been forced to turn to lower-quality artillery that has at times burst prematurely within guns and mortars – resulting in considerable hardware damage and casualties.
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Twenty-two months since it invaded, Russia has about one-fifth of Ukraine in its grip, and the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line has barely budged this year.
In Western countries that have championed Ukraine’s struggle against its much bigger adversary, political deliberations over billions in financial aid are increasingly strained.
Putin is playing a waiting game two years into a war that proved to be a costly miscalculation by the Kremlin.
He is wagering that the West’s support will gradually crumble, fractured by political divisions, eroded by war fatigue and distracted by other demands, such as China’s menacing of Taiwan and war in the Middle East.
The international political outlook could turn sharply in Putin’s favour after next November’s elections in the United States — by far Ukraine’s biggest military supplier and where some Republican candidates are pushing to wind down support for its war.
