NATO Chief Admits New Bullets Won't Arrive in Ukraine for Years

Artillery rounds for Ukrainian forces that will be produced under a new contract revealed by NATO may not be ready for up to three years, the alliance has said.

NATO announced Tuesday of a €1.1 billion ($1.2 billion) deal to produce hundreds of thousands of 155 mm artillery rounds, which is likely to yield about 220,000 rounds of artillery ammunition.

The agreement by the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) on behalf of alliance members will see them pass on the shells to Ukraine or keep them for their own inventories.

While NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters at NATO's headquarters in Brussels that the war started by Russia "has become a battle of ammunition," it could be a while before Ukraine's troops can use the new rounds.

After Stoltenberg addressed the news conference, NSPA general manager Stacy Cummings said the contract will allow the delivery of 155mm rounds to nations and "the expected delivery times for orders placed today are within 24 to 36 months."

While a NATO representative told Reuters that the initial deliveries could be made by the end of 2025, the outlet limit of the time frame announced on Tuesday suggests that some of the ammunition will not make it to Ukraine until 2027.

Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian defense ministry for comment on this timeframe.

Nearly two years into the war, Kyiv has complained of artillery shortages and is concerned its forces could run out of munitions before its allies agree on further military assistance, which is stalled in the U.S. and the EU.

"Currently there is not the capacity to manufacture any quicker," said Lewis Black, CEO of Almonty Industries, a mining company focused on tungsten—a vital raw material for weapons.

Black told Newsweek that there is still no approved tungsten supplier. "Raw materials are available from China and Russia so that's not a problem, although there is a certain irony in that situation, but the main problem is the capacity of the manufacturing plants as they just can't produce enough shells currently. "

"This is why it will take at least 36 months but that also depends on the availability of raw materials from China and Russia," he added.

Earlier this month, Gustav Gressel, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), told Newsweek that of concern for Kyiv in 2024 is that "we haven't increased our ammunition production for even simple artillery and mortar bombs to the point we can grant Ukraine fire superiority."

"We still haven't solved a lot of the supply chain and industrial issues behind a lot of the smart munitions we delivered to Ukraine," he said.

"There are a lot of shortages down the list in more complicated ammunition than just artillery shells," he added, and that regarding defense industrial production "some countries have increased it but other countries haven't."

According to European Union estimates, Russia is launching more than 20,000 shells daily in Ukraine. Ukraine has gone from firing 8,000 shells per day during its counteroffensive in the summer to just 2,000 in recent weeks, Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, Ukraine's commander of operations said in December.

In March 2023, the European Union pledged to provide artillery rounds to Kyiv over a 12-month period by dipping into existing stocks through joint procurement contracts and increasing manufacturing capacity. The EU fell short of its promise to supply one million artillery rounds in 2023, although Brussels said it expected the European defense industry to raise production.