Ukraine had to recall 100,000 artillery shells amid complaints they’d get stuck in launchers and weren’t exploding

Ukraine is recalling 100,000 mortar shells after reports that they were arriving at the front line poorly manufactured and with wet gunpowder.

Ukraine’s defense ministry issued a recall of 120mm artillery shells this week, citing defects in a recently delivered batch of rounds.

In a statement on Tuesday, the ministry said it was investigating incidents of “abnormal activation” of the shells from the last three weeks.

Officials didn’t say exactly how many rounds were affected, but Ukrainian media reported that 100,000 shells would be recalled.

The defective 120mm rounds — light artillery shells that Ukraine typically uses in mortars — were first reported in early November by Censor.Net, a local media outlet run by journalist Yuriy Butusov.

The outlet posted a video appearing to show a Ukrainian soldier complaining that the shells often failed to detonate and would sometimes fly only a short distance from their mortars.

Only about one in 10 rounds would fire and explode effectively, the soldier estimated.

Local broadcaster TSN also reported on Monday that soldiers said rounds would get stuck in their mortar barrels, and that their units were often receiving shells with wet powder charges.

Also called bounce or cheese charges, these are explosives meant to propel the mortar round out of its tube.

Butusov, who runs Censor.Net, published a separate video on his personal YouTube channel on Monday, saying that a commander told his outlet that several Ukrainian brigades were ordered to remove 100,000 shells from the front lines.

TSN and Ukrainian investigative journalist Yuriy Nikolov reported the same figure, with Nikolov writing that they were worth about six months of use.

Local reports also said that the rounds were domestically made by Ukroboronprom, a key ammunition manufacturer owned by the state.

The firm said in February 2023 that it partnered with an undisclosed NATO country to produce 120mm shells, but it’s unclear if the defective rounds came from this joint venture.

Ukroboronprom and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry did not respond to requests sent outside regular business hours by B-17.

In its Tuesday statement, the defense ministry said it was looking into the causes of the defects, including “low-quality powder charges or violations of the storage conditions of ammunition.”

Officials also said they would replace the defective rounds with imported ammunition, but did not elaborate.

Fedir Venislavskyi, a Ukrainian parliamentary member on a defense committee, told public broadcaster Suspilne that the rounds may have been affected by recent colder and more humid weather.

“In dry weather, these mines did not produce any failures,” he told the outlet.

An unnamed defense ministry official also told Suspilne that the ammunition issues were limited to a single batch out of several already delivered by the manufacturer.

Kyiv has placed heavy emphasis on producing its own artillery rounds after its forces were starved of shells for months during a US Congress lock-up of American aid earlier this year. Globally, Ukraine’s allies have also struggled to quickly scale up production of artillery shells.

On November 19, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said domestic factories had produced 2.5 million artillery shells and mortar rounds in 2024 alone.

Quantity has been especially critical for Ukraine, which is facing a grinding Russian advance in the east that’s relied on mass manpower, gear, and ammunition to chip away at the front lines.

Meanwhile, the ammo recall has sparked questions domestically about quality control and Ukraine’s procurement process, with local outlets calling the incident a “scandal” of “low-quality goods.”

Last year, Ukraine was hit by two major procurement scandals when its defense officials were accused of overpaying for food and low-grade winter jackets.

The defense ministry said a criminal investigation was launched for the 120mm case, but added that it wouldn’t disclose further details due to sensitive military information.