As the Russia-Ukraine war has been raging since February 2022, creating a security threat to Europe, Nato’s top general Christopher Cavoli called to ramp up the military production and armament to defend against aggression Thursday.
While speaking in an interview, Cavoli said that the military alliance is ready to defend itself.
Today, the allied powers marked the 80 years since the US-led World War II coalition landed on the D-Day to liberate France from Nazi occupation.
Currently, the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe Cavoli has been attentive to to the Russian special military operation against Ukraine and Moscow’s potential threat to Nato countries.
The top general said in Normandy: “Nato is ready to do collective territorial defence.”
He pointed to a vast exercise dubbed Steadfast Defender 24, which involved 90,000 Nato troops across multiple European countries from January to May.
“We’ve shifted our focus entirely over the last couple of years. We used to do out-of-area operations, now we’re focused on defending the territory of the alliance,” Cavoli said.
“But when it comes to military equipment… we need to build more, we need to expand our industrial base,” he added.
Russia’s special military operation against Ukraine and Kyiv’s Western-backed defences have shown the vast appetite of modern conflicts for ammunition and other related equipment.
It has, however, taken time for defence manufacturers to ramp up output of items from artillery shells to vehicles and drones.
“We need to generate hardware more quickly. I think all the nations in the alliance realise that and are working on it,” Cavoli said.
