Russia is “now producing three times as much ammunition in three months as the whole of NATO is doing in a year,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte recently told the New York Times.
RFE/RL and the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), an open-source intelligence group, analyzed Russian and Western weapons production to assess whether Russia really has such a large production advantage over the US and its allies and in which categories of weapons -- artillery, ammunition, tanks, aircraft, missiles, and drones, and air defense -- each side has the upper hand.
Fact Or Exaggeration? NATO vs. Russian Artillery Shell Production
It wasn’t the first time Rutte claimed Russia is far outpacing NATO artillery production. In April he told CBS in an interview that Russia “is producing four times more in ammunition than the whole of NATO is producing in a year.”
Ukrainian and Western officials estimate that Russia produced some 2–2.3 million artillery shells in 2024, an increase from an estimated 1.25 million in 2022, as Russia invests in expanding its production capacity.
The US, meanwhile, planned to increase its production of 155mm shells to 1.2 million annually by the end of 2025, with Europe producing approximately the same number -- Germany's Rheinmetall alone plans to produce up to 700,000 per year -- according to conservative estimates.
Actual US production of the shells stands at 40,000 per month, or just shy of half a million per year, for a total of about 1.7 million shells made this year in the US and EU.
For Russia to make three times as much every three months, as Rutte said, its factories would have to produce a massive 20.5 million shells this year.
According to CIT’s analysis, Russia’s factory expansions in Biysk, Kazan, and other locations may allow it to produce some 4 million 152mm and 122mm shells per year.
Shells Need Guns
Russia still relies heavily on its stock of Soviet-era artillery systems to fire the shells it produces, with reserves of towed howitzers falling from around 12,000 in 2022 to just over 6,000 in mid-2024. CIT analysts assess that the country produces less than 100 new Msta-S, Giatsint-K, and Malva self-propelled howitzers per year.
NATO clearly has the upper hand here, with France planning to produce 144 CAESAR artillery systems in 2025 and Poland doubling production of its AHS Krab to 100 per year. Slovakia is expected to make 40 Zuzana howitzers and the US produces 216 cannon tubes for its M777 guns annually.
Heavy Hitters
One area where Russia likely has the upper hand is tanks.
Like artillery, much of its tank production comes from restoring and modernizing Soviet tanks from storage. This would be the bulk of the 1,500 tanks Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s previous Supreme Allied Commander Europe, expects the Russian army to receive in 2025.
However, it has ramped up production “from scratch” of its modern T-90M main battle tank, producing about 280 per year.
Most countries in Europe, on the other hand, barely produce tanks. France hasn’t made a Leclerc in more than a decade, while Britain has ordered 148 of its new Challenger 3 tanks to be delivered by 2030. Germany is the exception, making 50 Leopard 2A8s per year.
The US produces 109 M1A2 Abrams tanks annually -- the Army says this could be increased to 420 if necessary -- and also modernizes up to 200 older models.
Air Superiority
While Russia makes more tanks, the US and EU outproduce it by at least a factor of four when it comes to combat aircraft. Russia can make an estimated 50-60 per year, including multirole aircraft like the new Su-57 and strategic bombers like the Tu-160M2. Despite sanctions, the country is making more planes than before its invasion of Ukraine. In 2018, the Russian military received 36 combat aircraft.
NATO production, though, is much higher, with US manufacturer Lockheed Martin on track to deliver over 170 F-35 strike fighters this year in addition to France, Sweden, and other EU countries making dozens of Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon, and Gripen jets.
Air Defense
As Russia launches barrage after barrage of missiles at Ukraine, and Ukrainian drones strike ever deeper into Russia, production of air defense systems has come into the spotlight.
According to The Military Balance, an annual assessment of military capabilities worldwide, Russia had 248 S-400 batteries in 2024 and gained a further 18 in 2025, implying a production capacity of 36 per year. Production of its other systems, like the Tor, Buk, and Pantsir are hard to come by.
Raytheon builds some 12 Patriot missile-defense systems per year, while Germany’s Diehl plans to make 8 IRIS-T systems in 2025 and some 800-1,000 missiles for the system per year. NATO also produces the Norwegian-American NASAMS system, which can use AIM-120 AMRAAM or AIM-9X missiles. The US produces 1,200 and 2,500 of each missile per year, respectively.
A lack of data makes it difficult to assess definitively how many air defense systems and missiles are produced by each party, but with both Ukraine and Russia regularly suffering hits from primitive drones, it seems clear that current rates are not enough to protect either country from a major new feature of the war that is here to stay: cheap mass-produced strike drones.
Drone Wars
According to Ukraine, Russia produces some 5,000 long-range drones of various types each month, or 60,000 per year. This includes the Geran-2 strike drone (a Russian version of Iran’s Shahed) and the Gerbera, a drone without a warhead used as decoy to saturate Ukraine’s air defenses.
NATO does not currently make anything analogous to these cheap kamikaze drones, with the US opting for much more expensive Reaper and Global Hawk UAVs.
Russia also makes over 200 cruise and ballistic missiles per month, according to Ukraine’s HUR intelligence agency, with annual production in the range of 2,400-3,000 missiles. The US produces an estimated 700 JASSM cruise missiles and 500 ATACMS ballistic missiles per year.
This gives Russia the advantage in both kamikaze drones and cruise missiles.
In the event of a war between Russia and NATO, NATO’s air defenses would be in a better position to neutralize the drone threat than Ukraine's air defenses, which have suffered from a lack of fighter jets since the beginning of the invasion, CIT analysts say.
While it has an advantage in missile production, Russia’s air defenses, struggling against primitive Ukrainian drones, would likely have a hard time protecting the country’s airspace from NATO missiles.
