EU wants to ramp up ammunition production to help Ukraine

By RAF CASERT
Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union has announced fresh plans to ramp up the large-scale production of ammunition. The EU is seeking to both benefit Ukraine while the country is at war with Russia and to improve the bloc’s geopolitical credentials. Ukraine is poised to launch a planned spring counteroffensive to recover Russian-occupied territory, but the country has burned through ammunition at a furious rate. The EU’s internal market commissioner said Wednesday that he wants to use at least 1 billion euros to fund an Act in Support of Ammunition Production, or ASAP. EU nations, lulled into complacency by decades of peace and military protection from the United States through NATO, have under-invested in ammunition production.