MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. Russian forces have a six-fold superiority over the Ukrainian army as regards the volume of artillery shells expended on the battlefield, Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Alexander Syrsky said.

"Until a few days ago, the enemy's advantage in terms of ammunition fired was about six to one," the Ukrinform news agency quoted him as saying.

The day before, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said in an interview with US television network CBS that Kiev would lose in the conflict if it did not receive help from Washington, and that the Ukrainian army had almost no artillery left.

On February 17, Czech President Petr Pavel, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, said that his country had identified an opportunity for purchasing hundreds of thousands of artillery shells for Ukraine in third countries if funds could be made available to pay for the initiative. Then Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said that the initiative was supported by 18 Western countries. The purchase of 300,000 shells has already been confirmed, while about 200,000 more have been promised. Commenting on the initiative, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said that this amount of ammunition was not enough.

Kiev has repeatedly stated that the Ukrainian army was facing ammunition shortages. The country's authorities are asking its allies to increase and speed up arms deliveries and are also trying to shift responsibility for the failures of Ukrainian troops onto Kiev’s Western partners. In turn, Kiev’s Western sponsors, which have ramped up arms deliveries to Ukraine by many-fold since Russia launched its special military operation, acknowledge that they are unable to meet Kiev's demand for ammunition.