Japan races to fill its ammo stores after Ukraine lessons

Japan’s Ministry of Defense will start building at least 65 new ammunition depots for the Self-Defense Forces from fiscal 2027, using a single standardized design to get them into service faster, the Nikkei business daily reported Sept. 20. The push to store more ammunition follows lessons Tokyo has drawn from Russia’s war in Ukraine, where stockpiles, supply lines and the safety of military sites have shaped the fighting.

The ministry has so far designed each depot individually, and switching to a standard model is meant to shorten design work and speed up construction, the newspaper said. The Self-Defense Forces operate about 1,400 ammunition depots nationwide, and the ministry plans to add roughly 130 by fiscal 2032. Sites for 65 of those have been chosen, and three had been completed by August 2026. The Nikkei did not say where the next 65 will be built or what the program will cost.

Japan’s 2022 National Defense Strategy and Defense Buildup Program call for the Self-Defense Forces to secure the ammunition they need as early as possible so they can sustain a long fight. When those plans were drafted, Japan held only about 60% of the Patriot PAC-3 MSE and SM-3 interceptors it needed for missile defense, and its stocks of artillery shells and rockets would have lasted about two months in combat, Shephard reported. Then-Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in October 2022 that the forces’ ability to keep fighting was inadequate.

A 2024 study by France’s Foundation for Strategic Research said Japan was trying to absorb lessons from the war in Ukraine on logistics, ammunition stocks, unmanned systems and the survivability of military bases. RAND researchers wrote in 2023 that Tokyo was increasing spending on munitions stocks and base hardening, and urged Japanese planners to prepare for a protracted conflict. Japan’s Ministry of Defense has not publicly linked the new depot design to any specific foreign example.

Czech police concluded in 2024 that officers from Russia’s GRU military intelligence carried out the 2014 explosions that destroyed ammunition warehouses at Vrbětice and killed two people, with the aim of stopping weapons from reaching Ukraine. In August 2026, explosions hit a Bulgarian plant run by EMCO, which makes 155 mm artillery ammunition for Ukraine, and a KNDS Ammo facility near Rome. Bulgarian and Italian officials have been reluctant to blame Russia, but Western intelligence officials have said the GRU now recruits criminal gangs to attack European arms sites while keeping Moscow’s hand hidden.

Kyodo News reported in 2023 that the ministry planned its first new depots at nine Ground Self-Defense Force sites in Hokkaido, Miyazaki, Kagoshima and Okinawa to store long-range missiles, including at Camp Ebino and the Okinawa Training Area. Japan is also buying 400 U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Japan spent about 48.2 billion yen ($308 million) on new depots from 2022 through March 2026, and its budget for the fiscal year that began in April includes about 56 billion yen ($358 million) more, Austrian magazine Militär Aktuell reported.