U.S. Army Chief of Staff Highlights Major Improvements to Russia’s Defence Sector

U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Randy George has warned that Russian efforts to bolster the country’s defence industry over the past two years have been met with considerable success. Speaking at a forum hosted by the Washington-based Defence Writers Group, he observed that Russian forces “are adapting and they are learning,” highlighted that advances in drones, loitering munitions, and electronic warfare demonstrated in combat in Ukraine as notable examples. “Don’t underestimate your enemy. That’s never a good place to start,” George further stressed, adding that Moscow had “done very well by pumping money and energy into [its] industrial base.”

The Chief of Staff’s assessments were echoed by other guests at the forum, with Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth noting that the country had proven capable of reviving its defence industrial base in spite of a wide ranging and intensive sanctions regime imposed by Western countries aimed specifically at undermining it. The defence sectors of the collective Western world have notably struggled to keep up with Ukrainian demand for munitions, which alongside severe manpower shortages has been a leading cause of Ukrainian forces increasingly losing ground on the frontlines. Western reporters at the front have reported with growing frequency the urgency of the situation, as the discrepancy in equipment and munitions supplies favouring Russian forces continues to grow.