The military bloc is launching new plants and expanding existing ones, the secretary general has said<\/p>\n
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has claimed that the military bloc is now outproducing Russia in ammunition, citing dozens of new production lines and the highest output \u201cin decades.\u201d
\nRutte made the remarks at the NATO-Industry Forum in Bucharest on Thursday, where he praised the members\u2019 pledge to hike defense expenditure to 5% of GDP by 2035. He claimed that it still would not be enough to counter what he again described as the Russian \u201cthreat.\u201d
\nMoscow has repeatedly said it has no intention of attacking any NATO member states, dismissing such claims as \u201cnonsense\u201d and attributing them to Western officials\u2019 attempts to justify increased military spending.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe are already turning the tide on ammunition,\u201d Rutte said. \u201cUntil recently, Russia was producing more ammunition than all NATO allies combined \u2013 but not anymore,\u201d he claimed.
\nNATO allies are opening dozens of new production lines and expanding existing ones, Rutte said, adding that the bloc is \u201cmaking more than we have done in decades\u201d while urging further progress in air defense and drone interceptors.
\nRutte has in the past repeatedly stated that Russia was ahead in the ammunition race with NATO. As recently as July, he told the New York Times that Moscow was producing three times more shells in three months than the US-led bloc did in a year.<\/p>\n
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Russia has ramped up its defense spending since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. President Vladimir Putin has said arms production has risen significantly, with output of some weapon types growing nearly thirtyfold. In late June, Putin revealed that Russia is spending 13.5 trillion rubles ($151 billion) on defense \u2013 around 6.3% of GDP. He acknowledged that the figure is high and has fueled inflation, while adding that the US spent even more during past conflicts \u2013 14% of GDP during the Korean War and 10% during the Vietnam War.
\nMoscow has repeatedly condemned what it calls the West\u2019s \u201creckless militarization,\u201d maintaining that no amount of Western military aid to Ukraine can change the course of the conflict and only serves to unnecessarily prolong the bloodshed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The military bloc is launching new plants and expanding existing ones, the secretary general has said NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has claimed that the military bloc is now outproducing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}