Following the trail of shells in Ukraine.

C.J. Chivers, former US Marine and now a war correspondent for the NY Times, had the chance in May in Ukraine to take a closer look at some of the casings discarded in the fighting in the East of the country. They were, as he himself thinks, unfortunately only a very small sample (79 pieces), mainly fired by separatists. The vast majority were of caliber 5.45x39 (AK-74 and variants), a few also 7.62x54R (Dragunov SVD & PK/PKM MG). According to the headstamps, only five of the casings were manufactured after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and all of these in Luhansk, Ukraine. One of many possible conclusions from this is that even if Russians are supplying the separatists with ammunition, they are smart enough not to incriminate themselves. Another would be that the generals in Kiev have not yet thought of issuing modern Russian surplus ammunition…