In the coming period, the armed forces of Ukraine will have to rely much more on the import of 120 mm mortar ammunition because they will have to retire more than 100.000 domestically produced mines due to a large number of failures in combat, the Balkan Security Network reported.
Only one out of ten mortar mines of 120 mm caliber produced in Ukraine did not fail in the past three weeks, which is why the Ministry of Defense of that country launched an investigation, according to the Brussels portal Politiko.
A preliminary investigation showed that the possible causes of a large number of failures were the poor quality of the powder charge or non-compliance with the rules for the placement of ammunition, which led to damage.
A member of the Defense Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament, Fyodor Venislavsky, assessed that the cold and humidity may have influenced such an outcome, since at a time when there was no precipitation, the mines did not fail.
As a result, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense withdrew certain batches of 120 mm mines from service and announced that it would have to rely more on imported ammunition in the future.
Politiko links this information with the recent Russian advance on certain sectors of the front, stating that in the earlier period, the Ukrainians succeeded in compensating the Russian numerical superiority with large-caliber artillery.
The State Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine has initiated criminal proceedings and announced that it will sanction the responsible officials in accordance with the results of the investigation. It was also announced that the production and storage conditions of ammunition will be more strictly controlled in the coming period.
The Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Independent claims that the whole story came to the public when soldiers from the front posted videos on social networks that showed mines either not being fired from mortars or not exploding when they hit the target.
The same source claims that the quantity of 120-millimeter mines, which were therefore withdrawn from use, was enough for six months of war, and that an investigation conducted by independent journalists indicated that the problem was in one factory of the Ukroboronprom conglomerate, which provided low-quality lighters.
The media also stated that some officials warned about this problem, but that their warnings were ignored.
The British Guardian, referring to Ukrainian independent portals and war reporters, writes that the scale of the crisis with withdrawn mortar ammunition is such that one can speak of "criminal negligence".
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