This is the warning given by the Secretary General of NATO in an interview for The Guardian.
Jens Stoltenberg said the Russian president was engaged in “a war of attrition” and said he wanted NATO members to agree to spend 2% of GDP on defense as a minimum at the alliance’s next summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.
Fierce fighting, currently centered around Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, shows that Russia is willing to “throw in thousands and thousands more troops for minimal gains,” the NATO chief was quoted as saying.
“President Putin does not plan for peace, he is planning for more war,” Stoltenberg continued, adding that Russia is increasing military industrial production and “approaching authoritarian regimes like Iran or North Korea, and others to get more weapons.” “.
As a result, the US, Great Britain, France, Germany and other Western countries were prepared to support Ukraine with weapons, ammunition and reserves for a long time
But “the need will continue to exist…”, said the general secretary.
Currently, The Guardian writes, the war was so intense that Ukraine’s use of artillery shells — 4,000 to 7,000 a day to Russia’s 20,000 — was outstripping Western production.
“The current rate of ammunition expenditure is higher than the current rate of production,” Stoltenberg said, although the new contracts meant that this was changing.
So, earlier this week, EU members agreed to supply Ukraine with one million shells, enough for six months or more.
But heading into what is expected to be his final summit, Stoltenberg said he wanted NATO members to be prepared to spend more to “blow back” Russia.
NATO’s annual report, published on Tuesday, admitted that only seven of its 30 member states – the US, UK, Poland, Greece and the Baltic states – met the current defense spending target of 2% of GDP in 2022. France at 1.89% and Germany at 1.49% failed, although both have committed to growth.
“At our summit in Vilnius in July, I expect the allies to agree on a new, more ambitious defense investment pledge, with 2% of GDP as a minimum to be invested in our defense,” Stoltenberg said.
Equally important, the NATO chief said, would be to convince China not to supply Russia with weapons, also lacking key ammunition.
China, whose leader Xi Jinping visited Moscow earlier this week, has been told by NATO members that there would be “consequences” if it provided “lethal” aid to Moscow.
However, Stoltenberg believes the West had provided enough military equipment, including tanks, combat vehicles and rocket artillery, “to enable the Ukrainians to retake territory and liberate more and more land” occupied by Russia since the beginning of the aggression in February 2022.
The aim, he stressed, was to “enable the Ukrainians to launch an offensive and retake territory”, although he said NATO was not a party to the conflict, with alliance members making their own decisions abou