(CNSNews.com) – A week ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion, NATO allies agreed at a two-day summit to ramp up the production of ammunition to facilitate continued supplies to Ukraine, and discussed further strengthening the alliance’s “eastern flank.”
“NATO allies are providing unprecedented support to help Ukraine push back against Russia’s aggression,” NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said in Brussels on Wednesday. “At the same time, this is consuming an enormous quantity of allied ammunition and depleting our stockpiles.”
“We need to step up even more,” he said. “This is now becoming a grinding war of attrition and a war of attrition is a war of logistics.”
Several member states, including the United States, France, and Norway, have already signed defense industry agreements to increase production, Stoltenberg said.
Addressing reporters at the end of the meetings, U.S. Defense Secretary Gen. Lloyd Austin said that “NATO allies have dug deep over the past year, and both President Biden and I are deeply grateful.”
“But we still have much more to do. Even as we rush to support Ukraine in the critical months ahead, we must all replenish our stockpiles to strengthen our deterrence and defense for the long term,” he said.
The NATO statement on the meeting did not address the question of providing fighter jets to Ukraine, which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pushing for. His defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, who attended the first day of the summit, reiterated calls on Wednesday.
“The urgent need now is to deliver what has always been promised, to deliver the armored vehicles,” Stoltenberg said when asked about the fighter jet question. “So the issue of aircraft is not the most urgent issue now. But it is an ongoing discussion.”
Germany and other allies last week committed to providing more tanks to Ukraine.
The decision to scale up munition production also signals a move toward increased defense spending, Stoltenberg noted.
Defense ministers at the meeting discussed investing more in defense, although no concrete decisions are expected until a NATO summit in Lithuania in July.
Allies currently are working on meeting an earlier pledge to devote at least two percent of GDP to defense by 2024. (As of mid-2022, only nine of the 30 NATO allies have achieved that goal so far.)
Germany’s defense minister voiced support for raising the target above that mark.
“Spending two percent will not be enough. It must be the basis for everything that follows,” Boris Pistorius told reporters. “The German government is debating that right now and will soon reach an agreement.”
His comment points to a stark turnaround for Germany, which is not one of the nine allies already spending two percent of GDP on defense (NATO’s figures put its spending at 1.44 percent in 2022) and had long resisted pressure from the U.S. and other allies to raise its defense spending.
Amid predictions of a new Russian offensive in its campaign in Ukraine, allies at the meeting also discussed stepping up support for countries neighboring or near Russia.
Britain, Canada and Germany have drafted a plan that would see NATO battalions in the Baltic states (led by Britain in Estonia, Germany in Lithuania, and Canada in Latvia) being expanded to brigade-strength.
Pistorius said the plan aims to address defense of “this particularly exposed part of the alliance.”
Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur described the eastern flank as “the front door of NATO.”
“In Ukraine at the moment, 110,000 square kilometers are occupied,” he said. “Estonia’s territory is 45,000 square kilometers. We don’t have this luxury to say that we will give away even one meter of our land.”
Plans to usher Finland and Sweden into the alliance remain in limbo, largely due to objections from Turkey, which says Sweden is not doing enough to address its security concerns relating in particular to militant Kurdish groups.
Turkey has indicated it may be willing to move ahead on ratifying Finland’s application alone at this stage, although Finland says it is committed to join the alliance in sync with Sweden.
Stoltenberg urged Ankara to quickly ratify both entry bids.
“The main question is not whether Finland and Sweden are ratified together,” he said. “The main question is that they are both ratified as full members as soon as possible.”
Turkey and Hungary are the only two of the 30 allies yet to have approved the new members. Hungary has indicated its parliament will take the step “early” this year.