The Defense Commissioner says what the EU needs to do after the US has used up many of its military resources in the Iran war. “We are far outnumbered by Russia here”
The United States can no longer supply Ukraine militarily, as it has significantly used up its arms and ammunition stocks in the war against Iran, therefore Europe must increase its armaments production to support Ukraine in the war with Russia, the European Commissioner for Defense, Andrius Kubilius, said on Tuesday, quoted by the EFE and Agerpres agencies.
“The US defense industry will need several years – three or four – to fill these reserves. Therefore, we need to focus much more on our own military production” in the EU, Kubilius said in an interview with the European news agency network European Newsroom.
The European Union has so far purchased from the US about 40% of its armaments, including key systems such as the Patriot anti-aircraft batteries and the missiles for these batteries provided to Ukraine through the PURL program (“List of Priority Needs for Ukraine”), the NATO initiative through which European countries buy weapons and ammunition for Ukraine from the US.
“We depend heavily on American services: space data, heavy airlift, in-flight refueling, command and control systems, among others,” European Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said.
“Our big problem is that we are still far outnumbered in production by Russia,” the Lithuanian commissioner further noted. For example, he pointed out, Russia produced about 1,200 cruise missiles and about 1,000 ballistic missiles last year, compared to zero ballistic missiles and less than 300 cruise missiles manufactured by EU states during the same period.
The European commissioner admitted that he took this data from ChatGPT: “I don't know how accurate it is, but since no one is disproving it, then I use it,” he said.
“Unpredictability is now the norm, but we've had time to adapt to Donald Trump's style”
As for NATO's future, the same European commissioner noted that he is starting from the “baseline scenario” according to which the United States will continue to lead the Alliance, although “unpredictability is now the norm.” “We've had enough time to adapt” to US President Donald Trump's style, which, although it generates “misunderstandings and a lot of confusion”, also brings “benefits at times”.
To support Ukraine's military capabilities in the war with Russia, European Commissioner Andrius Kubilius indicated as the main European instrument the 90 billion euro loan offered to Ukraine by the EU, 60 billion euro of which will be for defense, and Kiev will repay this loan only if Russia pays it “war reparations”, otherwise it will be paid by the EU states, with the exception of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which refused to participate in the mechanism of guarantee.
The fragmentation of the European defense industry has created “psychological and structural problems that are not easy to overcome”, a difficulty that the EU can no longer afford to ignore, the European defense commissioner said.
