American sniper in Ukraine says his unit prefers Soviet-era rifles because bullets are easier to find and they can take them from the Russians

[Pelican Press 0]

********* ******* in Ukraine says his unit prefers *******-era rifles because bullets are easier to find and they can take them from the Russians

• An ********* ******* in Ukraine said his unit prefers  AK-74 rifles over Western ones.

• That’s partly because they can get more bullets when they ******* a Russian position.

• Ammunition and other supplies from the West have dried up, leaving Ukraine running short.

An ********* veteran fighting in Ukraine said soldiers in his unit prefer to use *******-era rifles over modern ones because it’s easier to find ammunition, including by taking it from the Russians.

Jonathan Poquette is currently serving as a ******* in Ukraine, and he said that his unit prefers AK-74 rifles, which are chambered for 5.45×39mm rounds.

“The reason why our unit in particular preferred the AK-74 platforms is because that ******* system is plentiful for the Ukrainians and Russians.”

He said that when you go to a Ukrainian position, they are more likely to have that type of bullet available as many Ukrainians ****** with that rifle. Ukraine, once a part of the ******* Union, fights with a lot of *******-era weaponry that has long been in the country.

There are, of course, other ways to get the necessary rifle ammo as well, Poquette said, noting that “if you go and you ******* a Russian position and you need to resupply, the Russians are usually going to have 5.45.”

A Ukrainian serviceman fires a AK-74 ******** rifle at a frontline near the town of Bakhmut, Ukraine, in March 2024.Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Serhii Nuzhnenko via REUTERS

Poquette is a member of

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, a unit of fighters within the Ukrainian army’s 59th Motorized Brigade. The force is technically a reconnaissance unit, but it also executes both front-line ******** operations and defensive actions. He was injured in January and has been in recovery and training in Kyiv, Ukraine’ s capital city, since the incident.

He said that the prolific availability of older rifles among Ukraine’s soldiers was also partly an issue with Ukraine’s planning.

“The West has donated a lot of Western rifles that use 5.56,” Poquette said, referring to the standard 5.56X45 mm NATO round, “but the problem is that the Ukrainians didn’t necessarily consolidate those ******* platforms very good in certain areas.”

Ukraine has

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and weaponry for its forces to use them to ****** back against Russia’s invasion. This has also included ammunition from defeated Russian soldiers, or that fleeing Russians have left behind.

The Kalashnikov AK-74 was first designed in the 1970s, and an updated version, the AK-74M, was first adopted by the Russian army in 1991.

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the *******’s manufacturer, the latter is still widely used across the Russian military as a standard service rifle.

The problem with some of the weapons donated by Western countries is that they are often chambered in 5.56, Poquette said, and ammunition from the West has been in pretty short supply lately.

Ukraine’s ammunition shortages

Ukraine is suffering from extensive shortages of ammunition and weaponry that have had serious ramifications all along the front lines. The US recently

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thousands of small arms and about 500,000 rounds of Iranian ammunition taken from smugglers to Ukraine, but it’s only a stop-gap measure.

Shortages have been exacerbated by Republicans in the US stalling further aid for the past six months. That’s despite most of that money being

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as so many ********* defense companies would get the work, particularly to replace systems sent to Ukraine.

A Ukrainian serviceman with AK-74 ******** rifle covered in dirt is seen after returning from the frontline in the town of Chasiv Yar, Donetsk region, Ukraine in March 2023.REUTERS/Oleksandr Ratushniak

Soldiers say this means that they

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have had nothing to ***** for a day, leaving them unable to hit Russian targets that they can reach. Sometimes when another team takes over a position, the incoming forces will ask for the departing team’s ammunition and grenades.

Some of Ukraine’s biggest shortages right now are in air defense and artillery, which are leaving cities defenseless and making front-line combat much tougher to sustain.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zekenskyy said this week that

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than Ukraine. He said that unless aid from the US resumes, “we will have no chance of winning.” It’s a stark warning, one that experts have echoed as well, such as Frederick Kagan, who said that if Ukraine loses, the US and its allies will

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NATO if it chooses to do so.

Letting targets go

Poquette said that his unit has had to get more and more selective with its targets, even holding ***** with what were once game-changing weapons.

The Ukrainians, he said, aren’t ******* their US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) like they used to. He said

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that they would have hit earlier in the war because of a shortage of rockets.

Ukrainian troops ***** M142 HIMARS rockets toward Bakhmut in May 2023.Serhii Mykhalchuk/Getty Images

He also said that his unit has had to send infantry out to ****** small groups of advancing Russian soldiers rather than use indirect ***** to take them out, putting Ukraine’s soldiers at greater risk.

Europe has been trying to increase Ukraine’s ammunition supply, but many of its international partners say that there is not enough to spare on the continent and that not enough new ammo is being produced.

A Czech Republic-led initiative has been attempting to source ammunition from outside the EU. The country’s president

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this week that the first 180,000 rounds have been contracted and will be delivered to Ukraine’s front lines “in the coming months.”

Poquette said that Ukraine

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like tanks from its partners. He said that what matters most right now is “ammunition, grenades, claymores, or other types of mines, rockets, various different rocket systems.”

“What can one tank do?” he asked, rhetorically. “Not as much as 50,000 artillery shells, 5,000 mortar shells.”

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