NATO chief says ammo use ‘depleting allied stockpiles’
BRUSSELS » NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Monday that Ukraine is using up ammunition far faster than its allies can provide it and putting pressure on Western defense industries, just as Russia ramps up its military offensive.
“The war in Ukraine is consuming an enormous amount of munitions and depleting allied stockpiles,” Stoltenberg said. “The current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production. This puts our defense industries under strain.”
According to some estimates, Ukraine is firing up to 6,000-7,000 artillery shells each day, around a third of the daily amount that Russia is using almost one year into the war.
Speaking on the eve of a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers, Stoltenberg said the waiting time for the supply of “large-caliber ammunition has increased from 12 to 28 months,” and that “orders placed today would only be delivered two-anda-half years later.”
The former Norwegian prime minister said that President Vladimir Putin has already begun Russia’s longanticipated spring military offensive in Ukraine, “so we must continue to provide Ukraine with what it needs to win and to achieve a just and sustainable peace.”
“It is clear that we are in a race of logistics. Key capabilities like ammunition, fuel, and spare parts must reach Ukraine before Russia can seize the initiative on the battlefield. Speed will save lives,” he told reporters in Brussels.
NATO members and Ukraine’s other allies are meeting at the alliance’s headquarters on Tuesday under U.S. supervision to drum up more weapons and ammunition for the war-torn country. Many NATO allies are bilaterally supplying weapons to Ukraine, but NATO as an organization only provides non-lethal aid.
Tonight, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his counterparts will separately hold talks with Ukraine’s defense minister. On Wednesday, they will discuss NATO’s defenses on its eastern flank, close to Russia. Moves to beef up military budgets are also on the agenda.
In nearby Moldova
Meanwhile, Moldova’s president outlined Monday what she described as a plot by Moscow to overthrow her country’s government using external saboteurs, put the nation “at the disposal of Russia” and derail its aspirations to one day join the European Union.
President Maia Sandu’s briefing cames a week after neighboring Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country had intercepted plans by Russian secret services to destroy Moldova, claims that were later confirmed by Moldovan intelligence officials.
“The plan for the next period involves actions with the involvement of diversionists with military training, camouflaged in civilian clothes, who will undertake violent actions, attack some state buildings, and even take hostages,” Sandu told reporters at a briefing.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly a year ago, Moldova, a former Soviet republic of about 2.6 million people, has sought to forge closer ties with its Western partners. Last June, it was granted EU candidate status, the same day as Ukraine.
Sandu said the alleged Russian plot’s purpose is “to overthrow the constitutional order, to change the legitimate power from (Moldova’s capital) Chisinau to an illegitimate one,” which she said “which would put our country at the disposal of Russia, in order to stop the European integration process.”
She defiantly vowed: “The Kremlin’s attempts to bring violence to our country will not succeed.”
There was no immediate reaction from Russian officials to Sandu’s claims.
Sandu said that between October and December Moldovan police and its Intelligence and Security Service, the SIS, have intervened in “several cases of organized criminal elements and stopped attempts at violence.”
Over the past year, non-NATO member Moldova has faced a string of problems. These include a severe energy crisis after Moscow dramatically reduced gas supplies; skyrocketing inflation; and several incidents in recent months involving missiles that have traversed its skies, and debris that has been found on its territory.
Moldovan authorities confirmed that another missile from the war in Ukraine had entered its airspace on Friday.