Western militaries are running out of ammunition to supply Ukraine, head of NATO’s Military Committee Admiral Rob Bauer said on Tuesday, urging the bloc’s member countries to boost production to continue aiding Kyiv in its fight against Russia’s invasion.
“The bottom of the barrel is now visible,” Bauer said at the Warsaw Security Forum, adding that the defense industry needed to ramp up production at a much higher tempo as large volumes are needed.
“We now give away weapons systems to Ukraine, which is great, and ammunition, but not from full warehouses. We started to give away from half-full or lower warehouses in Europe,” Bauer added.
Bauer had said in September that a concern across the alliance’s Chiefs of Defense is how “production capacity is lagging behind, delivery times are moving to the right, and prices for equipment and ammunition are shooting up.
James Heappey, Britain’s armed forces minister James Heappey, also speaking at the forum, said: “We can’t stop giving just because our stockpiles are looking a bit thing; we have to keep Ukraine in the fight tonight and tomorrow and the day after and the day after, and if we stop that doesn’t automatically mean that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin stops, it means that Putin takes the opportunity to breakthrough and achieves the aims that he had in the first place.”
“So continuing to give, day in day out, and rebuilding our own stockpiles,” needs to be done concurrently, Heappey added.