Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the largest conventional war in Europe since 1945. What started off as a hybrid conflict of plausible deniability, soon spread to the Donbas, and then, on 24 February 2022, escalated into an all-out invasion of Ukraine by Russia. What has not changed since 2014 is the dominant role that the artillery has played on the battlefield with the armed services of both sides. 

War in Ukraine, Volume 9: Soviet-designed Artillery Systems, discusses Soviet-designed artillery systems in service with the Russian and Ukrainian armed forces. Both sides were able to draw upon a formidable artillery arsenal created by the USSR during the times of the Cold War. This was partially a result of Soviet artillery doctrine that stressed the importance of massed indirect-fire action and pre-planned barrages as an enabler for breakthroughs and manoeuvre. Upon the collapse of the USSR in 1991, this arsenal was divided: the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (VSRF) inherited the bulk of it, and thus in both 2014 and in 2022, the Russian artillery arm significantly outnumbered its Ukrainian counterpart. Each of the relatively meagre successes enjoyed by the VSRF can be at least partially attributed to its ability to simply unleash more shells and high explosives at the Ukrainians than the latter could fire in return. To this end, the VSRF remains heavily reliant on its large inheritance of Soviet gun artillery systems, even if the losses it has suffered in the three years since the all-out invasion have forced it to fall back on older systems, often stored for decades. 

Ukraine has also inherited a sizeable artillery arm from the USSR. However, much of it had been allowed to degrade, along with other infrastructure. Ammunition production all but ceased and a number of ‘accidents’ at major storage depots massively decreased the remaining stocks, while eight years of on/off war in the Donbass also wore out many artillery systems. Still, Soviet-legacy artillery systems played a key role in blunting the all-out invasion of 2022, and they remain in widespread service at the time of writing.