NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned this Monday of the need for Western defense industries to increase production capacity to keep up with the pace of the war. Stoltenberg warns that the war in Ukraine is “exhausting the reserves of the Allies”.
Jens Stoltenberg’s alarm comes on the eve of a meeting of the defense ministers of the Atlantic Alliance, at the institution’s headquarters in Brussels. Stoltenberg defends the strengthening of production to compensate for the increasingly tight stock.
“The war in Ukraine is consuming a huge amount of ammunition and depleting Allied supplies. The current rate of spending on ammunition in Ukraine is many times greater than our current production capacity,” warned NATO’s Secretary General, who admitted that supplies take longer and longer.
“The waiting time for large-caliber ammunition has increased from 12 to 28 months”, that is, “orders placed today will not be delivered for another two and a half years,” revealed Stoltenberg, who defended the need to “stop production increase and invest in production”. capacity”.
At this point, NATO’s Secretary General calls on allies to accelerate deliveries to Ukraine “of key resources, such as ammunition, fuel and spare parts, Ukraine must arrive before Russia has the opportunity to take the initiative on the battlefield” .
“Speed will save lives,” says Jens Stoltenberg, not ruling out the possibility of supplying Western aircraft to Ukraine, although he believes that priorities should be respected.
“What the opinion of [a entrega de] planes, it will take time,” Stoltenberg said, noting that “what is needed now is urgent support for Ukraine”.
“That’s why my number one priority is to ensure that Allied commitments – such as tanks, armaments, tanks – are delivered as quickly as possible, because every day counts,” he said.
Source: DN
