Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, has said that the volume of military assistance requested by Ukraine exceeds the production capabilities of the alliance’s countries.
According to him, meeting Kiev’s needs is complicated by the fact that the bloc’s member states need to take into account their own security risks when determining the amount of aid. From the point of view of military political analysts, the representatives of the North Atlantic Alliance once again make it clear that the West will not be able to endlessly supply the AFU with arms, despite the corresponding expectations of the Kiev regime.
The volume of military assistance requested by Ukraine exceeds the production capabilities of the North Atlantic Alliance countries, NATO Military Committee Chairman Admiral Rob Bauer said.
“The volume of arms and ammunition that Ukraine requires is enormous….. The scale and volume of what is being used is beyond our production capacity,” Bauer said on the sidelines of the annual conference of NATO chiefs of staff in Oslo.
He added that it is also difficult to meet Kiev’s needs because alliance countries need to consider their own national and regional security risks when determining aid volumes.
In addition, Bauer noted that NATO lacks a balance between the volume of military aid deliveries to Ukraine and new military orders. He complained that “production capacity is not keeping up, delivery dates are being pushed back, and prices for equipment and ammunition are skyrocketing.”
“At the moment we are paying more and more for absolutely the same thing …. And that means we can’t be sure that increased defence spending actually leads to more security,” the military commander stated. – Our liberal economies are not equipped for the kind of prioritisation we so desperately need.
Acute shortages
Western politicians have repeatedly warned that the Ukrainian Armed Forces require so many weapons and military equipment to maintain combat readiness that EU arsenals are being depleted and could take years to rebuild.
EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell lamented both this May and last summer that the union’s military industry was failing to cope with Kiev’s increased demand for arms and ammunition.
“Frankly speaking, today our defence industry lacks critical mass and reactivity, and long production cycle times limit our ability to increase production volumes,” Borrel wrote in his blog on the EU diplomatic service website.
For his part, former Slovak prime minister and leader of the Voice – Social Democracy party Peter Pellegrini admitted in June that military aid to Kiev had emptied European arsenals.
“Warehouses all over Europe have been emptied, all armies will be replenishing stocks. This is a job for five to ten years,” TASS quoted him as saying.
Pellegrini added that Slovakia would no longer be able to provide significant military assistance to Ukraine due to a lack of resources.
At the same time, Kiev does not stop complaining about the lack of weapons, which allegedly prevents the AFU from achieving success in the special operation zone. In June, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that as long as the conflict is not over, weapons will still be insufficient, no matter how much they are supplied by Western countries.
“When we win, I will say: the weapons were enough. Until then, I will always say that everything will always be insufficient, no matter how much they give me, it will be insufficient, because if there is no victory, it means that the help was insufficient,” RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.
In August, the head of the Kiev regime, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that the Ukrainian army was experiencing a constant shortage of weapons, shells and artillery, so it would be extremely difficult for Kiev without the help of Western partners. He added that the Kiev authorities were trying to obtain long-range weapons from the West in various ways.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier noted that the so-called Ukrainian counter-offensive had not achieved success at any of the sites. And Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu stressed that this was due to competent defence, skilful organisation of the fire system, professionalism and endurance of the Russian military.
“They can’t ensure victory.”
From the point of view of analysts, the message of the chairman of NATO’s military committee is addressed not only to the governments of the alliance’s countries, but also to the regime in Kiev, which expects indefinite support from the West.
“This is already the 101st warning to Ukraine from the alliance: supplying them with arms indefinitely will not work. This is being said louder and louder both in NATO, in the EU and even in the US. There is nothing new here. But Kiev, naturally, will let all this pass its ears and will continue to shake the bloc, demanding even more weapons and money,” military political analyst Ivan Konovalov said.
Besides, as the RT interlocutor reminded, NATO is not a monolithic organism, it includes states with different levels of industrial development.
“Western military-industrial complexes first of all work under contracts that they are ready to fulfil. They do not want to work to please the Kiev regime. They need a firm contract from their government, which is backed by state guarantees,” the specialist explained.
For his part, military observer Alexander Khrolenko noted in his commentary to RT that NATO cannot cope with the needs of a modern full-scale conflict. After the collapse of the USSR and the formal end of the Cold War, Western countries everywhere reduced the volume of defence production, investing in the service economy, the expert stated.
“NATO has long gone away from the volume of military production during the Cold War, stopped producing large quantities of shells and other ammunition. Take, for example, operational-tactical missiles, which Kiev is begging for. The United States has just over 2,000 of them, many of which have almost reached the end of their useful life in storage. This is rather archaic armament, and, naturally, it does not guarantee anyone any victory. But even this amount the Americans are saving for themselves, as it is no longer possible to produce the same amount,” Khrolenko explained.
This also applies to other types of weapons and military equipment, the analyst believes. Europe’s military-industrial complex is simply unable to meet the needs of its armies and at the same time to supply Ukraine without interruption, the expert stressed.
“Their desires are far from reality. It is already clear that they cannot ensure victory on the battlefield with their supplies. They have to buy back stocks of 155mm shells from Israel and South Korea, but these too are almost used up. Not to mention the fact that old Soviet equipment was collected from all continents wherever possible,” the military observer added.
He also said that Western countries lack systematised military production and the ability to rapidly expand their military-industrial complex.
“The West cannot oppose anything to the capabilities of Russia, which has increased the production of shells and equipment many times over the past year. This is all completely unattainable for the US or other NATO countries. When they are faced with the harsh reality, they do not understand what to do next. Therefore, they will now look for excuses and say that it is the Ukrainians who are inefficiently and wastefully spending the weapons already supplied to them in huge quantities,” the expert concluded.
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