Ukraine can find HIMARS stock empty in months, says expert

Retired Marine Corps Colonel of the United States (US) army Mark Cancian predicts that the supply of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) missiles provided by the U.S. to Ukraine to combat Russian aggression will be depleted within the next three or four months.

"[Three to four months is] a pretty wild guess, but I don't think that's crazy," Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Newsweek. "Some people have estimated a month or so. I don't think they're firing them that fast."

"We will get to that point where the U.S. will have to reduce the number of missiles provided because the stocks will be running low. I think there will be a series of discussions inside the Pentagon," Cancian added. "The military will probably want to hold on to more; the civilian officials will probably want to release more, and they'll come to some sort of agreement on what is an acceptable level of risk."

Cancian, who spent over seven years working on Department of Defense (DoD) strategy and war funding at the Office of Management and Budget and did two tours in Iraq, said that "the number of rockets [produced by the US] is relatively limited."

He said that the US has produced about 50,000 guided rockets since they began production in 2004 and will buy about 5,800 this fiscal year.