NATO countries are not providing Ukraine with enough ammunition and its forces are running out, the alliance's secretary general told reporters at a press conference in Brussels on Thursday.
"The Ukrainians are not running out of courage. They are running out of ammunition," Jens Stoltenberg said. Later in the press conference, he added, "NATO allies are not providing Ukraine with enough ammunition and that has consequences on the battlefield every day."
Stoltenberg was presenting his annual report on NATO, which said member states' military spending rose 11% last year.
Military spending by NATO members, particularly in Europe, fell dramatically after the end of the Cold War. But European nations have been rearming in the wake of Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Nevertheless, the report said that only 11 of 31 NATO members hit the target of spending 2% of GDP on defence last year. Sweden joined as NATO's 32nd member on March 7 of this year.
Finland became the 31st member in April 2023, and is included in the 11 countries who hit the target.
The United States has by far the biggest military budget among NATO members in absolute terms. But according to the report, Poland spent the largest share of national GDP - 3.92% - on defence in 2023. On that measure, the United States came second with 3.24%.
The United States and Croatia were the only NATO member states that spent a smaller proportion of GDP on defence in 2023 than they did in 2014, the year Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula.
Stoltenberg said that NATO allies also needed to invest in their industrial capacity to produce armaments that Ukraine can use.
He said Western intelligence services estimate that the number of Russian soldiers killed or wounded in Ukraine has now exceeded 350,000.
"Russia is paying a very high price for marginal gains," Stoltenberg asserted.
Ukrainian attacks also sank or disabled a significant part of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Stoltenberg added. In the air war, he said, Ukraine has been shooting down high-quality surveillance aircraft belonging to Russia.
Stoltenberg did not say how many of the estimated 350,000 Russian casualties are fatalities.
These numbers cannot be independently verified. The Russian side does not provide any precise information about the losses in its own ranks.
