NATO’s chief says the West is finally ‘turning the tide’ on Russia’s ammo advantage

• After years of warning about Russia’s advantage, NATO is starting to look positive about munitions manufacturing.

• NATO chief Mark Rutte said the alliance was now producing more munitions “than we have in decades.”

• It’s a sign that NATO believes it can soon overcome Russia’s enormous production advantage.

NATO chief Mark Rutte said Thursday the alliance was narrowing the gap with Russia’s advantage in munitions manufacturing.

“We are already turning the tide on munitions,” Rutte told a defense industry forum in Bucharest, Romania. “Until recently, Russia produced more munitions than all NATO allies combined. But not anymore.”

The secretary general’s comments represent a rare positive note for the alliance in its assessment of the balance of power between Europe and Russia. Rutte and his predecessor, Jens Stoltenberg, have been warning for years that NATO is desperately supporting Russia in munitions production.

It is unclear whether Rutte intended to suggest that the alliance had already reached parity – or was close to reaching parity – with Russia in munitions manufacturing.

Just five months ago, Rutte said the Kremlin produced four times more munitions than NATO, despite the alliance having a combined economy 25 times larger than Russia’s.

The NATO press team did not respond to a request for comment sent outside of normal business hours by Business Insider.

Rutte said in his speech on Thursday that NATO was now producing more munitions “than we have produced in decades.” However, he also spoke of new factories in the works.

“Within the alliance, we are currently opening dozens of new production lines and expanding existing ones,” he said.

One of NATO’s main concerns is stockpiles of 155mm artillery shells, which European countries are shipping to Ukraine as the war bogs down in a protracted conflict of attrition.

To replenish their stockpiles, NATO countries like Poland, Germany and the United Kingdom have invested heavily in local industries to rapidly increase shell production, with more than a dozen factories opening across Europe in the past two years.

But ramping up case manufacturing may take months or even years, with some companies estimating they will only be able to meet demand by 2026 or later. The US military, for example, had hoped to produce 100,000 rounds per month by October, but has now pushed that goal back to mid-2026.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian estimates indicate that Russia produced around 3.8 million artillery shells in 2024 alone, or around 310,000 shells per month.

Making artillery munitions isn’t just about building factories. The 155mm shell relies on supply lines of steel, rockets, propellant and energy.

The propellant, which drives an artillery shell out of its launcher, has often been a major choke point for ammunition production because it relies on a compound called nitrocellulose that is now in short supply.

Another essential component is the explosive material contained in the shell, such as regular TNT and its more capable counterpart, RDX. Several countries and companies have built TNT factories to reduce Western dependence on the Asian market.

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