When Vladimir Putin met with Kim Jong Un a few days back, you had all sorts of people claim that it was because Russia needed North Korea to give them ammunition. The reality is that NATO and the West are the ones with the ammunition problems.
RT:
Rising ammunition prices mean the West is spending more money on defense but ending up with less in its stockpiles, NATO Military Committee Chair Admiral Rob Bauer warned on Saturday. NATO officials have previously warned that the Ukrainian military is using more ammo than the West can produce.
“Prices for equipment and ammunition are shooting up. Right now, we are paying more and more for exactly the same,” Bauer said after a meeting of NATO defense chiefs in Norway, according to Reuters.
“That means that we cannot make sure that the increased defense spending actually leads to more security,” he added.
The price increase has been primarily driven by the Ukrainian military’s consumption of artillery shells, particularly 155mm rounds for its Western-provided guns. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned in February that Kiev was burning through this ammunition faster than the West could replace it.
Jens Stoltenberg said that the West needs to prepare for a “long war.” It is sort of hard to fight a “long war” if you don’t have the means to replenish your ammunition stocks. All the economic problems we are seeing throughout the West is only going to exacerbate this problem. The war they are waging against Russia is unsustainable and it has for all intents and purposes already failed.
