SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
NATO signs $1.2-bn artillery shell deal
Brussels, Jan 23 (AFP) Jan 23, 2024
NATO on Tuesday signed contracts worth $1.2 billion to acquire over 200,000 155-millimetre artillery shells in the face of Russia's invasion on Ukraine.

Members of the Western military alliance have drained their stocks sending shipments of heavy ammunition to help Ukraine's forces battle Russia in a brutal war of attrition.

The latest deals -- signed with French firm Nexter and Germany's Junghans Microtec -- are estimated by officials to cover around 220,000 shells and deliveries to NATO members will start at the end of 2025.

"It is important that our allies refill their own stocks as we continue to support Ukraine," NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said.

The US-led alliance last year launched a plan to bolster defence production and has since inked joint procurement contracts for ammunition worth some $10 billion.

Those include a deal to buy up to 1,000 European-produced Patriot air defence missiles that was signed last month.

The European Union has also launched its own efforts to increase defence production, but the 27-nation bloc is falling far short of a target of supplying Kyiv one million artillery shells by March.

The push to refill stocks and ramp up output comes as doubts swirl over future support for Ukraine from key backer the United States.

Stoltenberg insisted that Kyiv's supporters "will support Ukraine with the systems and the weapons and ammunition they need to prevail as a sovereign, independent country."

He said the alliance for now did not "see any direct or imminent threat against any NATO ally" from Russia and had stepped up its eastern defences to dissuade Moscow from any aggression.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
China Focus: Chinese scientist details first planned Mars sample-return mission Tianwen 3
NASA says it will lose about 20 percent of its workforce
Building blocks of life found in distant star system suggest origins in interstellar space

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Trump administration expected to say greenhouse gases aren't harmful
MicroCarb satellite launches to map global carbon dioxide emissions from space
Rollable solar array by GalaxySpace redefines satellite compactness and power efficiency

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
Airbus CO3D satellites begin mission to generate high precision global 3D map
BlackSky to supply satellite imagery and analytics for Latin American security operations
GovSat selects Thales Alenia Space to build secure satellite for military communications

24/7 News Coverage
First wildfire images reveal FireSat's unmatched detection capabilities
MetOp Second Generation satellite fully fuelled ahead of August launch
MicroCarb satellite launch marks new era in urban carbon tracking



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.