The German Defense Minister acknowledged the difficulties of the European Union in supplying shells to Ukraine

The European Union may not be able to meet its target of supplying 1 million shells to Ukraine, Germany says, amid Kyiv’s ongoing conflict with Russia.

The European Union’s goal of supplying Ukraine with 1 million artillery ammunition is unlikely to be achieved, Germany’s defense minister admitted on Tuesday.

“We can assume that the 1 million rounds mark will not be reached,” Boris Pistorius said ahead of a meeting of EU defense ministers in Brussels. But EU member states are working with industry to increase production, he added.

As CNN recalls, in March, EU countries agreed to provide Kyiv with 1 million artillery ammunition, which should be delivered to Ukraine within 12 months.

Minister Pistorius’ warning came a day after EU foreign affairs and security policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc may not meet ammunition production targets to supply Kiev by the end of the year, but said efforts were being made to increase production capacity.

According to Borrell, in the short term, European armies have been asked to provide ammunition from existing stocks, amounting to approximately 300 thousand rounds.

Borrell added that on the manufacturing side, several contracts have been signed, but it all depends on how quickly the factories can produce ammunition.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba insists Kyiv urgently needs the EU to increase its ability to supply ammunition to the Ukrainian military.

Ukraine is “ringing its bells a lot and loudly” over EU ammunition supplies, the head of the Kyiv Foreign Ministry said on national television on Monday evening. “I believe that the cause of these problems is not a lack of political will on the part of the EU to support Ukraine,” he said. “There is such political will, but, let’s say, there is a deplorable state of the defense industry, capable of producing a sufficient number of shells, and warehouses, and the ability to conclude foreign contracts.”

Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, Western allies have openly expressed concerns about their ability to provide Kyiv with the necessary amount of ammunition – and their ability to produce it quickly enough to replenish dwindling stocks, CNN emphasizes.

Western conventional munitions production declined after the end of the Cold War as countries focused instead on modern military equipment. Very few seriously believed that another large-scale land conflict would break out in Europe.

“The combination of a lack of immediate threat and financial pressure on European governments over the past couple of decades has led to a conspiracy to decorate storefronts while warehouses sit empty,” Nick Whitney, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN earlier this year.

This “storefront decorating” approach, CNN notes, helps us understand why European countries had low stockpiles of ammunition when the conflict in Ukraine began, but does not explain why the situation did not improve dramatically in the following year.

Experts point to a number of factors. “There are limits to how much production can be achieved quickly. A larger increase in production would be costly and take time to implement,” Tom Waldwin, a defense acquisition fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, explained in an interview with CNN in February.

“No private company accountable to shareholders will staff and maintain large capacity to produce equipment that people are not buying, so it will be difficult to meet a sudden surge in demand in the short to medium term,” Waldwin added.