The Ukrainian Defence Ministry has reportedly found armaments recently supplied by Italy to be sorely wanting in quality, according to reports from the Financial Times citing anonymous sources, with not a single one of the recently delivered 20 self propelled howitzers having been usable. Although the M109 is an American howitzer design, Italy produced the guns domestically and had reportedly maintained them poorly. The paper added that Ukraine’s counteroffensive was failing to live up to Western expectations and that Kiev, having failed to press the United States to provide F-16 fighters, could soon come under significant pressure to negotiate. The Times’ report on the state of Italian armaments is far from unprecedented, with arms from multiple European states and from Italy in particular repeatedly having found to be wanting in quality.
In December, for example, Italian Mod63 120mm mortars were described by Ukrainian recipients as “much worse than their Soviet equivalents from WWII,” with issues with ammunition deliveries from Italy further limiting the assets’ usefulness. “Today we are barely able to fire two rounds per minute that do not fly beyond 3-4 km, less than half of what we expected,” Ukrainian sources reported, with the assets deemed unfit for combat and quickly removed from frontline use despite arms shortages in the ongoing war. German weapons have also been particularly singled out for criticism due to their questionable quality, with the performances of multiple systems cited as examples. German media outlet Der Spiegel, for example, reported in late July that Panzerhaubitze 2000 self propelled artillery guns, touted by several Western sources as being the most capable in the world, showed significant signs of “wear and tear” after just a month in service, breaking down, and forcing Ukraine to rely more on its artillery from other sources. American and Soviet artillery and other equipment has reportedly consistently proven significantly more reliable.