BRUSSELS/PARIS (Reuters) -- NATO is expected to ask its members to raise its ammunition stockpiles which have been badly depleted by the war in Ukraine, as allies try to put arms supplies to Kyiv and their own militaries on a sustainable footing after a year in crisis mode.
Even before the Ukraine war began on Feb. 24 last year, many NATO countries fell short of meeting the alliance’s stockpiling targets, as officials considered wars of attrition with large-scale artillery battles a thing of the past.
But the pace of deliveries to Ukraine, where Kyiv’s troops are firing up to 10,000 artillery shells daily, has drained Western inventories and exposed holes in the efficiency, speed and manpower of supply chains.
“If Europe were to fight Russia, some countries would run out of ammunition in days,” a European diplomat told Reuters.
NATO has just completed an extraordinary survey of the remaining munitions stocks, a NATO official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
“Those NATO (munitions targets) that we set, and each ally has a specific target, those were not being met for the most part (before the Ukraine war),” the official said.
Now the stockpiles are running even lower due to the conflict in Ukraine, making it likely that NATO will raise the target levels for their members’ ammunition reserves, the source said.
“I would be absolutely gobsmacked if the targets…were not increased,” said the NATO official.
Just how many rounds are left in Western military inventories is highly classified. The same goes for the NATO stockpiling targets, which are specific to each member state and one of the alliance’s best kept secrets.
Generally speaking, NATO tasks each ally with providing certain capabilities that the alliance can draw upon in case of a conflict.
This could, for example, mean a certain ally may have to have one armored division - some 10,000 to 30,000 troops - fully equipped and ready with ammunition, capable of fighting at a certain level of intensity for a certain amount of time.
Factoring all these conditions in, the country will have to provide a certain amount of ammunition, tanks, howitzers and what else may be needed to fulfill NATO’s requirements.
Germany alone was 20 billion euros ($21 billion) short of reaching the NATO target before the invasion, according to a defense source.
The NATO official said the biggest shortfall are battle-decisive munitions ranging from 155 mm shells used in howitzers, to HIMARS missiles, and ammunition for air defense systems like IRIS-T, Patriot and Gepard, all in heavy use by Ukrainian troops.