Chung, Wen Jian War in Ukraine. Volume 9: Soviet-Designed Artillery Systems, 2022-2024

A volume from the series "Europe @ War". Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the largest conventional war in Europe since 1945. What began as a hybrid conflict with plausible deniability soon spread to the Donbass and eventually escalated into a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia on 24 February 2022. What has not changed since 2014 is the dominant role that artillery plays on the battlefield - in the armed forces of both sides. This publication focuses on Soviet-designed artillery systems in service with the Russian and Ukrainian armed forces. During the Cold War, both sides drew on a vast artillery arsenal created by the USSR. This was partly a consequence of Soviet artillery doctrine, which emphasised the importance of massed fire and pre-planned barrages as a prerequisite for breakthroughs and manoeuvres. After the collapse in 1991, this arsenal was divided up: The armed forces of the Russian Federation took over the bulk of it, and so Russian artillery clearly outnumbers its Ukrainian counterpart in both 2014 and 2022. Every single one of the Russian forces' - relatively meagre - successes can be attributed, at least in part, to their ability to simply fire more shells and explosives at the Ukrainians than they can fire back. To this end, the Russian army continues to rely heavily on its extensive legacy of Soviet gun systems, even though the losses it has suffered in the three years since the invasion have forced it to fall back on ever more older systems, often decades old. Ukraine has also inherited considerable artillery from the USSR. However, much of it has fallen into disrepair along with the rest of the infrastructure. Ammunition production has almost completely ceased, and a series of "accidents" in large warehouses has massively reduced the remaining stocks, while eight years of intermittent war in the Donbass have also worn out many systems. Nevertheless, the old Soviet artillery systems played a key role in the defence against the 2022 invasion and are still widely used today.