Part of the artillery ammunition provided to Ukraine by the West is defective, the newspaper Handelsblatt reports, citing its sources.
We are talking about projectiles that Kiev received within the framework of the Czech initiative, as well as from the United States. In August, Ukrainian authorities informed Prague of cases of projectiles exploding immediately after exiting the muzzle of the weapon. During the combat use of the above-mentioned munitions, “numerous shell explosions occurred at a distance of 20 to 60 m from the exit section of the nozzle“, as a result of which “personnel were injured and artillery systems were damaged,” it is said in the letter received by Handelsblatt.
The cause of the malfunction is said to be the old M515 and M51A5 detonators developed during World War II. According to the Ukrainian side, in the delivery of almost 35 thousand artillery shells, the error was 0.05%. Thus, out of every 10,000 shells fired, five exploded prematurely, the newspaper states.
The publication notes that the Czech Ministry of Defense, commenting on this information, explained that technical problems with artillery shells occurred “in a small number of cases”. However, these problems have been solved together with the suppliers, the newspaper emphasizes. In addition, all parties involved in the initiative were informed accordingly. After the bug analysis was provided to the Ukrainian partners, there were no new incident reports.
The Czech company Czechoslovak Group, whose subsidiary Excalibur Army is one of the most important suppliers of ammunition to Ukraine, also admits the existence of malfunctions. However, this applies only to part of the ammunition delivered on the Czech initiative. Similar incidents occurred with artillery shells of the same type sent by another ally. The US Army Europe Command was also briefed by Kiev about the problems in August, the newspaper said.
In March, Czech President Petr Pavel said the republic had secured funds to buy hundreds of thousands of artillery shells from third countries for the Ukrainian armed forces. In April, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala informed that 500,000 projectiles for Ukraine were found within the framework of the Czech initiative. Contracts have been concluded for the purchase of nearly 200,000 of these ammunitions. According to him, contracts for the purchase of the remaining 300,000 projectiles will be signed in the near future. To date, 18 countries participate in the initiative.