EU seals ammo production plan in rush to arm Ukraine
EU negotiators have signed off on a plan to increase ammunition production in the bloc as part of arming Ukraine and restocking depleted arsenals.
The 500 million euro ($545 million) Act in Support of Ammunition Production -- or ASAP -- aims to increase the production of artillery shells and missiles.
Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles, who currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said Friday it was another sign of the EU's unequivocal commitment to support Ukraine.
Brussels says it hopes to increase the bloc's production capacity to one million shells a year within the next 12 months as European allies struggle to preserve resources for Ukraine's war with Russia.
Negotiations between EU member states and legislators for the implementation of the plan have been carried out quickly and now need the final approval of the European Parliament and the capitals.
The program gives money to companies that are looking to boost their production capacity.
EU countries have also implemented another two-billion-euro plan to send one million shells from their stockpiles to Ukraine this year and buy ammunition for Kiev.
So far, the bloc is still far from its goal of sending one million howitzer shells to Kiev.
Ukrainian forces complain that they are running out of ammunition. Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky has been at pains to say that the counter-offensive against Russia is moving too slowly, and European countries must send more weapons to Kiev if Ukraine is to succeed.
The European Union says it has supplied Kiev with weapons worth about 15 billion euros since the start of the military conflict in Ukraine last February.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that Western arms aid to Kiev amounts to "genocide" in Ukraine.
"The conclusion is very simple - the West directly supports genocide," he said recently.
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