Ukraine's strike on a Russian missile depot last week destroyed enough ammo to impact attacks for two to three months, an Estonian commander said

• Ukraine struck a Russian missile storage facility in Russia's Tver region last week.
• An Estonian commander said it destroyed enough ammo to impact Russian attacks for two to three months.
  
  

Ukraine's strike on a Russian missile storage facility in Russia's western Tver region destroyed enough ammunition to impact Russian attacks for months, an Estonian commander said.

The Institute for the Study of War reported on the calculations in an update on Sunday.

Last Thursday, Colonel Ants Kiviselg, the head of the Estonian Defense Forces Intelligence Center, said Ukraine's strike on a large warehouse in the town of Toropets resulted in the explosion of 30,000 tons of weapons, likely causing around 750,000 artillery shells to be destroyed.

Considering Russian forces fire an average of 10,000 shells a week, this would be the equivalent of two to three months' worth of shells, Kiviselg said, adding that the impact will be seen on the front lines in the coming weeks.

Experts from the ISW noted that Kiviselg might have misspoken about the average number of shells Russian forces fire each week. They said the commander could have meant 10,000 shells a day instead of 10,000 shells a week, but they couldn’t confirm that was the case.

They said Ukraine’s continued strikes would generate wider operational pressures on the Russian military.

Hitting military facilities and other targets deep inside Russia is a strategy that Ukraine has used to put pressure on Moscow, forcing it to disperse its weapons.

However, Ukraine has been barred from using its arsenal of Western-provided long-range missiles to go after strategic targets inside Russia, and has had to rely on drones and domestically produced weapons.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly asked the US and other Western allies to lift those restrictions.

In a nightly address on Saturday, Zelenskyy said he would continue to talk with Ukraine's partners and allies, including US President Joe Biden, to convince them about the need for "full-range" capabilities.

He told CNN last Friday that lifting the restrictions was a "key" part of the victory plan he will present to US officials this week, and that he was hopeful his case would be heard.

Correction: September 24, 2024 — An earlier version of this story overstated the ISW’s position on Kiviselg’s calculations. ISW analysts reported that Kiviselg had made the calculations but did not make the same assessment themselves. The story has also been updated to acknowledge that Kiviselg may have misspoken about the average number of shells that Russian forces fire each week.