Much of their support has also come from the EU, and the EU has a lot more than that. The EU has more fighters and ships, more tanks, more soldiers. It is true that the EU didn't and still doesn't have deep ammo reserves, though. But it has far more capacity to ramp up production of these than Russia has; the Russian economy is about the size of that of the Benelux.
Absolutely. The EU is now finally but rapidly adapting to these geopolitical changes. Defense budgets are now far higher than the 2% that used to be the goal that nobody met.
In the 1990s everybody was eager to believe that war was finally and forever over. Some held on to that delusion for a bit too long, but not anymore.
That was the 2024 figure. In 2025 it rose to 2.1% and this year it is expected to rise further.
And that's just the direct allocation, not the under water part including venture funding of some of the defense industry (obvious overlap: anything including AI & drones, it's pure VC bait).
Eastern European countries warned us, but western Europe, Germany in particular, but other western European countries too, assumed Russia was now a normal country we could just trade with. Under Yeltsin we might have been heading in that direction, but Chechnya should have been a warning. Putin's comment about "countries that don't matter" was a warning. Russia taking chunks out of Georgia should have been the alarm. We continued trading even after he took Crimea and Donbas. We have been way too naive.
Reporting is messy and due to the EU's fragmented linguistic nature harder to come by than it probably should be.
The balancing act is to increase stockpiles whilst supplying Ukraine which is consuming almost as fast as we're producing. Precision weapons you are right about, those are dwindling, but at the same time this is the one area where Ukraine internal production is beginning to outnumber imports (and their motivations are not so much quantity as 'no strings attached', which is very understandable).
Artillery shell production is up, 2.2 million shells/year or thereabouts, but here too the Ukraine war is consuming them very fast, either way, it is sixfold or so of what it was prior to 2022. Many new factories have been built and opened and are since a few months adding their output to the stream.
I think what held things back for a bit is that the EU was - wrongly - under the impression that Putin would back off but now that it is clear that that is not the case the longer term investments make sense. But it took a while for that to get underway.
This is absolute fantasy. Stockpiles are only depleting, production hasn't and won't come close to meeting demand, and until there's a shooting war inside the bloc, it won't.
Unless you are privy to secrets at a level that they contradict the EU official figures + the figures from the defense contractors that I am tracking this is as accurate as I can make it.
I do not have access to information from the military other than what gets published but that's good enough for me as long as I don't see contradictions.
They were aiming for a 100% supply to Ukraine + stockpile increase for 2026 and I see no reason to disbelieve that other than your comment, if you want me to re-calibrate my position on that you're going to have to supply some sources.
The ~2M figure was a 2025 EOY nameplate capacity target, not actual output for the year. Even those capacity numbers are widely overstated - it’s well known in defence circles (where you claim to be) that real capacity is running at about 40% of official claims, with some shortfalls being made up by international procurement, but the majority remaining unfulfilled.
As for EU motivations, Orbán is the visible blocker, but the Western states are even more constraining than Hungary. It’s Spain, Ireland, Germany, France, etc. that have no appetite for war or economic upheaval, which would immediately topple governments across the bloc. EU defence policy requires unanimity across states, and it doesn’t exist.
Rhetoric is strong but thin, and almost everybody apart from yourself sees it. Let’s come back to this in a year, when production figures and defence spending for 2025 become public and see.
