NATO INVITE Ukraine needs an unconditional invitation to join the NATO military alliance now, he said. "We understand that NATO membership is a matter of the future, not the present. But (Russian President Vladimir) Putin can see that his geopolitical calculations are headed for defeat," Zelenskiy said.
BEEF UP UKRAINE'S DEFENCE CAPABILITIES He said Ukraine's ability to defend itself had to be "irreversibly strengthened" and laid out a number of ways to do this. They included further arming Ukraine and strengthening its defence industry, boosting air defence capabilities, removing restrictions on weapon use and a continuation of Ukrainian military operations on Russian soil.
DETERRENCE Zelenskiy said Ukraine's western allies should deter Russia from any further aggression by showing Moscow that this would have consequences. "Ukraine proposes to place on its soil a comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package that will be sufficient to protect Ukraine from any military threat from Russia," he said. He said there was also a secret addendum to this part of the plan, and did not go into further detail on what the proposed deterrence involved.
STRATEGIC ECONOMIC POTENTIAL Zelenskiy proposed that Ukraine sign an agreement with the U.S., EU and other unnamed allies that would allow for joint investments and use of Ukraine's natural resources, which Zelenskiy said were worth trillions of dollars. "These include, in particular, uranium, titanium, lithium, graphite and other strategically valuable resources that will strengthen either Russia and its allies or Ukraine and the democratic world in global competition," he said.
UKRAINE STRENGTHENING NATO Zelenskiy proposed that after the war, Ukraine's armed forces could be used to enhance the security of NATO, and replace some of the U.S. forces currently stationed in Europe.
BRUSSELS — Kyiv will get cash from NATO, but the alliance is waffling on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call for Ukraine to get a clear invitation to join the alliance to deter Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
NATO chief Mark Rutte said Wednesday that the alliance will reach a €40 billion military aid target for Ukraine, but was fuzzier on just when Ukraine will get into the alliance.
That’s not what Zelenskyy wants to hear ahead of his visit to Brussels Thursday to push his so-called victory plan, which was presented Wednesday to Ukraine’s parliament. He aims to end the war by securing a NATO membership invitation plus continued arms shipments to force Russia to the negotiating table
Why Russia is far outpacing US/Nato in weapons production 為什麼俄羅斯在武器生產方面遠超過美國/北約
Indeed, Russia is outproducing all of NATO and the U.S in terms of ammunition, rockets, and tanks, despite having a 2023 defense budget of just $100 billion and a GDP of $2 trillion. Compare this to the combined US/NATO defense budget of $1.47 trillion and a combined GDP of about $45 trillion.
In short, the United States and NATO allies are prosecuting a war they would like to win, while Russia is prosecuting a war it believes that it has to win — an existential war
Going into 2022 there was little doubt that the U.S. Army no longer believed artillery to be as central to the battlefield as it once was. Demonstrating this mindset, on May 21, 2021, just about eight months before Russia invaded Ukraine, the Army requested permission to cut back annual spending on its 155mm rounds by half, reducing annual production to 75,357 rounds per year, about 6,200 per month.
Yet, it is not enough to provide artillery shells, you also need the artillery to fire the shells, and Ukraine’s artillery is not only wearing down, but it is also being destroyed by Russia. And long before artillery tubes (barrels) fail completely due to wear and tear, they begin to lose range and become less accurate. Both Ukraine and Russia have to deal with the wear issue, so the question is who has the heavy industry to build artillery tubes.
Though there's not a lot of information available on artillery tube/barrel production rates, Russia is outstripping the U.S. and NATO weapons production by running its very large Soviet era factories 24/7 to produce ammunition, vehicles and other military. This suggests that it is also likely doing the same when it comes to artillery tube production, as well as producing brand new artillery.
The Army's plan to build production up to 100,000 rounds per month, 1.2 million annually, by the end of 2025 sounds pretty good. But we have yet to see that production rate in reality, and by the end of 2025 Ukraine could have lost the war.
Hence, if everything goes according to plan, by the end of 2025 the U.S. and its NATO allies could be producing nearly 2 million 155mm rounds per year. This seems less impressive when you consider that from the start of the war to today Russia has already increased its overall annual artillery shell production to three million rounds.