NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, speaking at a security conference in Prague, said situation is marked turnaround from where the alliance was when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
NATO is narrowing the gap with Russia when it comes to ammunition production, with allies increasing their output sixfold over the past two years, the alliance’s top official said Thursday.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, speaking at a security conference in Prague, said the situation is a marked turnaround from where the alliance was when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“Until recently, Russia was producing more ammunition than all NATO allies, including the U.S., including Türkiye, the whole of NATO together,” Rutte said. “Much faster than we possibly could. And their economy is not bigger than Texas.”
A push inside Europe to ramp up production has allies catching up, however.
“If we look only at the countries of the European Union, their annual capacity to produce artillery ammunition will be six times that of just two years ago. Six times,” Rutte said. “That’s two million rounds by the end of this year.”
As a result, stockpiles are filling up and NATO is “narrowing the production gap with Russia,” he said.
But while there have been gains in ammunition production, allies are still lagging in other areas.
Russia now allocates 40% of its budget to itswarfighting efforts, Rutte said. While Russia has suffered heavy losses in manpower and equipment connected to the war in Ukraine, its wartime economy has enabled it to churn out new weaponry.
This year, Russia is expected to roll out at least 1,500 tanks, 3,000 armored vehicles and hundreds of Iskander missiles, Rutte said. “This trend is not going to shift or reverse anytime soon,” he said.
To counter such threats, NATO has increased defense spending requirements for its members, going from the current level of 2% of gross domestic product to 5% in the coming years. The larger defense budgets should help allies meet a wide range of defense requirements.
Rutte detailed some of the items on NATO’s shopping list.
“We need to increase the number of air and missile defense systems five-fold. We need thousands more armored vehicles and tanks. We need millions more artillery shells,” he said.
Rutte said NATO should look to Ukraine as an example of what’s possible when it comes to dialing up production.
“Since February 2022, Ukraine has ramped up its yearly artillery systems production from nearly zero to well over 200 heavy artillery systems. So, going from a single prototype to mass production in really record time,” Rutte said.
Ukraine also is able to produce 4.5 million drones per year. “That’s truly stunning. Imagine this across Europe and North America? And I believe that’s our direction of travel,” he said.
- Security