Estonia’s top military commander said fresh intelligence on Russia’s ability to produce ammunition and recruit troops has prompted a re-evaluation among NATO allies and a spate of warnings to prepare for a long-term conflict.
Martin Herem, the commander of the Estonian Defense Forces, said predictions that Russian forces would reach the limits of their resources haven’t come true. President Vladimir Putin’s military has the capacity to produce several million artillery shells a year, far outstripping European efforts, and can recruit hundreds of thousands of new troops, he said.
The general from Estonia, which shares a nearly 300-kilometer (186-mile) border with Russia, joins a growing number of North Atlantic Treaty Organization military chiefs who have warned over the past month that the alliance should prepare for a war footing with the Kremlin. Herem referenced an earlier estimate that Russia could produce a million artillery shells a year.
“A lot of people thought they couldn’t go beyond that — today, the facts tell us otherwise,” Herem said in an interview in Tallinn. “They can produce even more — many times more — ammunition.”
The USSR spent decades developing massive AA systems because they knew they couldn’t keep up in a plane manufacturing fight. So Ukraine needs very sophisticated targeted missiles to take out those systems (and all of them) if they want air superiority. They won’t get it.