Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has admitted the failure of the plan to increase artillery production.

This information was reported by The Moscow Times.

Shoigu made his statement during a visit to the Ural Plant of Transport Engineering (Uraltransmash). During the inspection, he criticized the company’s CEO, Oleg Emelyanov, for delaying the deadlines.

“Listen, you guys, stop fooling around here. We started working on this in earnest in 2022. We were supposed to have these machines operating at full capacity in 2023, and here you are, all calm and asserting it’s alright, so to speak,” Shoigu said, addressing the plant’s management.

Shoigu recalled that the Russian president had instructed him to increase the production of self-propelled artillery. He demanded that Uraltransmash’s management provide him with a report within a week on how they plan to reach the targets.

“It regards self-propelled artillery, and here, of course, if we have come out of repair today and the new Msta self-propelled howitzers are already at a good pace, then we need to strengthen other systems,” the Russian Defense Minister said.

In addition, he said that the Russian Defense Ministry will sign a long-term contract for the latest Koalitsiya-SV self-propelled guns.

Militarnyi previously reported that the Russian enterprise Uraltransmash revealed serial samples of the 2S35 Koalitsiya-SV 152mm self-propelled artillery gun.

In fact, these are some of the first production samples of ACS. Before that, Russian troops were receiving experimental models that were upgraded at Uraltransmash facilities.

The researcher of armored vehicles, Andrii Tarasenko, reports that the capacity of the enterprise did not allow for the organization of serial production of the 2S35 Koalitsiya-SV self-propelled guns. The plant was limited to the repair and modernization of the Msta-S self-propelled guns and work on experimental models of Koalitsiya.

As previously reported, in 2023, the Russian defense industry produced 2 million rounds of 122mm and 152 mm ammunition.

The Russians also transported rounds from Belarus, then bought them from Iran, and then received large batches from North Korea.