NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte declared on Thursday that the alliance is rapidly narrowing the long-standing gap with Russia in the sphere of ammunition production — an area that has for years underscored Moscow’s industrial advantage in sustaining prolonged warfare. Speaking before a defense industry audience in Bucharest, Romania, Rutte emphasized that a decisive transformation was underway in the alliance’s ability to manufacture munitions. “We are already turning the tide on ammunition,” he observed, noting that until quite recently, Russia’s armament factories were collectively outperforming every NATO member state combined. That situation, he insisted, has now fundamentally changed.

Rutte’s remarks carried notable significance because they represented one of the few overtly optimistic assessments of NATO’s industrial and military balance compared to its principal strategic rival. For nearly a decade, he and his predecessor, Jens Stoltenberg, had cautioned that the alliance was lagging dangerously behind Russia’s expansive defense manufacturing base — particularly in the critical domain of artillery ammunition, which has proven essential in modern, high-intensity warfare. His new statement, therefore, hinted at a marked shift in momentum and confidence.

Nonetheless, it remained ambiguous whether Rutte intended to assert that NATO had fully achieved production parity with Russia or whether the alliance was merely approaching that point. The distinction is significant: only five months earlier, Rutte had publicly acknowledged that Russian factories were generating approximately four times more ammunition than all NATO nations combined, despite the fact that the combined economies of the alliance outweigh Russia’s by a factor of roughly twenty-five. This disparity underscored how economic size alone does not automatically translate into military industrial efficiency or readiness.

At the time of Rutte’s latest comments, NATO’s communications office refrained from providing further elaboration, declining to respond to inquiries submitted by Business Insider outside of regular operating hours. Yet Rutte’s speech suggested that the alliance’s defense sector was undergoing its most accelerated period of production growth in decades. “Across the alliance, we are now producing more ammunition than we have done in decades,” he said, underscoring that progress had been tangible but was also linked to ongoing industrial expansion. He acknowledged that many of the new facilities under construction across Europe were still ramping up, explaining, “Across the alliance, we are now opening dozens of new production lines and expanding existing ones.” Such lines reflect a coordinated transatlantic effort to strengthen supply chains and secure long-term production resilience.

One of NATO’s most pressing operational concerns remains its stockpile of 155-millimeter artillery shells — the backbone of Western artillery systems — which member states have been channeling in vast quantities to Ukraine as that country continues its drawn-out and exhausting war of attrition against Russian forces. The depletion of those reserves has spurred urgent investment initiatives across the alliance. Nations including Poland, Germany, and the United Kingdom have committed billions of dollars to revitalizing their domestic ammunition industries, creating new plants, refurbishing older production lines, and recruiting skilled workers to hasten the scale-up of shell manufacturing. Over the past two years alone, Europe has witnessed the opening of more than a dozen new munitions factories, marking a substantial shift toward self-sufficiency and sustained output.

However, expanding industrial capacity in the defense sector is an inherently slow and technically complex endeavor. Industry experts note that it typically takes many months — and sometimes several years — before such factories can reach their intended production rates. Some defense contractors estimate that full demand alignment might not be achieved until 2026 or later. For instance, U.S. defense planners had initially aimed to produce around 100,000 155-millimeter shells per month by October of the current year, yet logistical realities have forced them to postpone that milestone to mid-2026. This delay reflects the numerous technical and supply obstacles that accompany rapid expansion.

Meanwhile, intelligence estimates from Ukrainian sources indicate that Russia has maintained a formidable production tempo, reportedly manufacturing about 3.8 million artillery shells during 2024 — an average of roughly 310,000 shells per month. This figure highlights both the scale of Moscow’s sustained defense mobilization and the enormous industrial catch-up challenge NATO continues to face.

The complexities of producing modern artillery ammunition extend far beyond merely constructing factories or installing assembly lines. A single 155-millimeter shell relies on a highly intricate supply network involving crucial inputs such as high-grade steel casings, precision fuzes, energetic propellants, and explosive fillers. Among these, propellant — the chemical compound that propels a projectile through its barrel — has frequently emerged as one of the principal bottlenecks in expanding production. Its manufacture depends heavily on nitrocellulose, a specialized material currently experiencing global shortages. Disruptions in the availability of this input can reverberate throughout the entire ammunition production ecosystem.

Another essential component lies in the explosives used within the shells themselves. Traditional TNT remains common, but higher-performance alternatives such as RDX provide greater power and consistency, particularly for modern artillery. To mitigate the risks of dependency and shortages, several allied states and private firms have begun constructing new TNT and related energetics plants, seeking to diminish Western reliance on manufacturing capacity located in Asia. These efforts not only strengthen NATO’s immediate production base but also enhance long-term strategic autonomy in the critical sector of defense logistics and heavy munitions production.

Taken together, Rutte’s comments framed a cautious but genuine sense of progress. They suggested that NATO’s prolonged struggle to match Russian ammunition manufacturing capacity is beginning to yield tangible results, even if full balance remains some distance away. By investing in factories, reestablishing industrial expertise, and addressing the vulnerabilities in supply chains for propellant and explosives, the alliance is visibly retooling itself for an era defined by sustained geopolitical competition — an era in which industrial resilience may prove every bit as decisive as battlefield innovation.

Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/nato-chief-mark-rutte-turning-the-tide-russia-ammo-production-2025-11