Pakistan doesn’t produce 152mm shells as the Pakistani Army doesn’t use such calibre. Indirectly, Pakistan sends significant quantities of 155mm and 122mm shells and 122mm rockets for Grads. In regards to 152mm, 122mm for artillery or rockets, 125mm for tanks, 82mm/120mm for mortars, etc., Bulgaria is crucial firstly, then Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, also Bosnia; there has been evidence of shipments from Serbia (!) and even Sudan and Iran (!!), the latter in terms of 122mm HE shells produced in 2023 too. Only God might know how many countries were involved as middlemen for such ammo to end up in Ukraine. Even though regarding these latter countries they must be a sort of “nice to have” shipments, not a constant and copious amount like from the former Warsaw Pact countries or as far as it seems Pakistan.

Let’s hope so! That would be good news. South Korea should also be thanked, even if they don’t provide lethal aid directly. The half a million 155mm shells loaned to the US unlocked an equivalent amount from the US stocks to Ukraine; let’s hope the same deal with the 300k 155mm shells from Japan goes through as well. Cluster munitions are also critical in these months as a gap filler while waiting for the 155mm factories in Europe and the US to be put into full swing. Ukraine has also started limited production of Soviet calibers in the West of the country.

Unfortunately, as good as the EU plan to provide shells to Ukraine is, we have to rely on third countries that don’t even support Ukraine officially because the ability of Western European countries to sustain attrition warfare has been quite embarrassing since the end of the Cold War, at least compared to the size of their economies. My country, Italy, is the second largest donor of 155mm artillery guns to Ukraine after the US but we have only one factory (Simmel, the one mentioned in your article - not counting the one that manufactures Vulcano guided shells) that produces conventional 155mm shells and with limited production capacity. It was written that Germany after the donations to Ukraine currently has just 20k 155mm HE shells in storage; I think Italy too has a few tens of thousands at most (we had to send to Ukraine the 155mm shells that the US had donated to us during the Cold War, luckily they were kept well). I doubt the situation in France or the UK is radically different.

Without:

1. Ukraine having deep Soviet-inherited stockpiles that allowed the country to hold on for the first few months

2. the 1+ million 155mm shells donated by the US in 2022

3. the factories of the former Warsaw Pact countries at full capacity

… I fear the current map of Ukraine would have looked quite different.

The only thing I would add to your comment is that I’m pretty sure that the mobilized in VDV are either people who had served in the branch in the past or at least people deemed of fairly good quality compared to the average (for instance, I think it’s the pool of people who overlaps with the ones who might have been qualified to join Wagner in other times). The ISW had reported the presence of mobilized men in VDV but I’m skeptical about them being poor in quality (as claimed), at least compared to the average level of the Army’s mobilized. If that was the case, we should see serious deteriorations in fighting capabilities and esprit de corps, which is quite important in VDV compared to other branches. I was seeing the other day that 250 new recruits took an oath as members of the 331st Regiment, but as far as it appears from the video they are 19 yo or so from the military service, who in theory should not be going to Ukraine. This is an interesting issue, because the Russian Army has a percentage of its enlisted personnel doing military service (the target this spring was drafting about 150k men) who cannot be sent to the front, and so a portion of the units have always remained on their own bases in Russia. I’m curious if Russia will ever start using boys from the military service on the frontlines if things get particularly bad, and even more curious about how much pressure there will be at the end of their service to sign permanent contracts.

In conscription-based armies, elite units are often largely or partly made up of conscripts, selecting those with the best stamina, and a positive self-selection bias (not always justified) also comes into play in which the most nationalistic, combative, and brave elements are attracted to perceived elite units - primarily paratroopers. After all, since the paratroopers have existed, they are often loathed by the rest of the branches for this very thing. Even the Spetsnaz have been having a share of their enlisted personnel being conscripts since always after all! For example by selecting those who have distinguished themselves by being athletes in high school, etc. The corollary is that Spetsnaz are hardly comparable to the SF/SOF units of NATO countries; VDV and Russian naval infantry manage to be competitive in an environment where quality is lacking and both armies make extensive use of mobilized men.