>>Finally, the assumption that Russia has unlimited ammunition notwithstanding, ...

I'm sure they have enormous stockpiles left from before the 89-90 collapse as heavy artillery usage was central to Soviet military doctrine. But did the explosives incorporated have an unlimited shelf life? As I remember, there was a shift to explosives that don't exude oils and become hyper-sensitive in the mid-late 80s, but that makes shells manufactured before that (or even after that, the USSR not having been known for fast technological change) subject to, essentially, use-by dates, which they'd be well past in 2022. That hyper-sensitivity might explain some of the ammo dumps inside Russia far from the Ukrainian border (some in a different time zone) blowing up.

Also, can they even manufacture tubes anymore? Artillery barrels have a life measured in number of shells - and the ones the RF has been using in Ukraine have seen heavy use...

Thanks for the update. I realize it's mostly to FB (which I don't use) so thank-you for copying these updates to Medium, whether that's you Stefan doing it or someone else (and if it's the latter a thank-you to them).