US sniper fighting in Ukraine: ‘Give us ammunition and artillery. We are not interested in tanks”

An American veteran fighting in Ukraine says that right now, soldiers desperately need artillery and ammunition rather than expensive equipment like tanks, because their priority is to survive, reports Business Insider.

Jonathan Poquette told Business Insider that the shortage of ammunition soldiers face on the battlefield forces them to choose their targets very sparingly.

“Give me bullets, mortars, give me artillery, things that will allow individual soldiers to fight and kill the Russians,” he says of the debate among Ukraine’s allies weighing what kind of additional aid to give.

“I don’t care about vehicles”he says, stressing that there is an acute need for ammunition and that they cannot afford to think long term.

Poquette is a sniper with the Chosen Company—an international force within the Ukrainian Army’s 59th Motorized Brigade, officially a reconnaissance unit but often used more for front-line assault and defensive missions. He is recovering after being injured in Kiev in January.

He said that although expensive vehicles like tanks “it matters, I think they overshadow the bigger picture”.

More important than these are “ammunition, grenades, mines, missiles, various missile systems”, he added.

“What can a tank do?”, he asked rhetorically.

“Not as much as 50,000 artillery shells do, 5,000 mortar shells,” he pointed out.

Jump over targets

He said they have stopped firing on small groups of advancing Russian soldiers, as they once did.

“It got to the point where, if the group attacking us was small enough, then the Ukrainians would assess it, and decide, ‘Well, there’s only two or three guys, maybe four, are they really worth artillery fire or of mortar?”

Instead, they are considering whether to attack his infantry, a strategy that carries greater risks for Ukrainian soldiers.

He said his unit had to become much more demanding when it had to hit targets with US-supplied HIMARS missiles, a game-changing weapon when it was first offered to Ukraine.

Ukraine would be in a “much better” situation if it didn’t suffer from the munitions shortage, says the US veteran.

The U.S. is to some extent to blame for our “inability to hold ground,” however, he does not shy away from saying, some poor Ukrainian tactics and actions have also hindered their progress on the battlefield at times.

Poquette said the problem with Western aid is that it has arrived “in pieces” after long debates and different levels of support arriving in different packages.

He said the feeling is that “everything we got was either too late or just enough to last, as if when donations are made it’s enough to keep Ukraine fighting, but without long-term thinking.”

That means Ukrainian soldiers are often forced to plan for survival rather than long-term success. He is in this situation at this moment.

“These bullets will be good for two months, but what happens in five months and then another five months, and it always comes back to the same thing. Well, we’re in a bullet crisis again.”

Conflict analysts estimated last month that Ukraine would need about 75,000-90,000 artillery shells per month to sustain the war on the defensive, and more than twice that – 200,000-250,000 – for a major offensive.

Some broader plans to supply Ukraine with ammunition are underway, including an initiative by the Czech Republic to source ammunition from outside the EU. Sources told The Guardian that the first deliveries of shells will be made before June.

The Pentagon announced a $300 million tranche of aid for Ukraine in mid-March, but said it was only a stopgap measure for Kiev’s most pressing needs, not a long-term boost.

Earlier this week, the French defense minister announced that France would soon be able to supply Ukraine with 78 more Caesar 155mm self-propelled howitzers.

“We are developing remotely operated munitions in a very short time frame, to be delivered to the Ukrainians as early as this summer,” said Sébastien Lecornu to the French press on Sunday.

Ukraine has said it anticipates a new Russian offensive, which could begin as early as May and last until the summer. Officials in Kiev and Western analysts alike have warned that shortfalls and delays in military aid have limited Ukrainian operations and curbed their efforts to stem Russian territorial gains.

After Ukraine successfully repelled a large-scale Russian mechanized assault around Avdiivka on Saturday, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank said the success proved that “Ukrainian forces can achieve significant results on the battlefield if they are properly equipped.”