Rutte: Russia produces as many shells in three months as NATO countries do in an entire year.

The NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte emphasized the need to accelerate production in the defense industry. This topic will be central at the upcoming NATO summit in The Hague.

He made this statement during a panel discussion at the 61st Munich Security Conference, as reported by Interfax-Ukraine.

“Currently, Russia produces as many munitions in three months as the entire NATO alliance, which is 20 times larger than Russia in terms of economy, produces in a year. Therefore, we are falling behind. Russia is on a war footing, with a war economy. We are not. We must address this. We need to eliminate delays,” he stated.

The Secretary General stressed that this is also “good business for our American friends,” as European allies spend four times more in the U.S. than the U.S. spends in Europe.

“Thus, increasing defense industry production will also bring a lot of dollars to the American economy,” he added.

Rutte reiterated the necessity of ensuring that Ukraine is in the best position during peace negotiations, which means continuing training and supplying weapons to Ukraine.

“To my European friends, I would say: participate in the debates, without complaining about whether you can or cannot sit at the table, but by putting forward specific proposals, ideas, increasing spending, ensuring ongoing training and arms supplies. But also by presenting concrete ideas on what security guarantees might look like, for example,” he added.

Background. It is worth noting that Trump’s special representative for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg stated that he does not believe Europeans should be invited to the negotiating table. According to him, there were many Europeans at the previous negotiations “Minsk-2,” but they failed.