The US Army is speeding up its weapons acquisition processes to replenish stocks depleted by the constant flow of arms shipments to Ukraine, a top military official said on Monday.

The country’s military is using contracting lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic to speed up the procedure, Doug Bush, chief of acquisition, told reporters. The expedited contracting effort means processes that used to run in succession will now be run simultaneously, according to Reuters.

Washington has sent almost $18 billion worth of arms to Ukraine since Russia launched its military offensive in late February. The Pentagon also spent more than $2.6 billion between May and October replenishing key weapons stocks, recent contracting data shows.

The Department of Defense admitted, however, that it would still take “multiple years” for the US Army to be fully resupplied, according to a fact sheet seen last week by the New York Post.

The US is not the only country facing depleted stocks of weapons due to the Ukraine conflict. Germany’s military is currently facing severe shortages of ammunition, Eva Hoegl, the Bundestag’s commissioner for the armed forces, said on Sunday. While the shortfall has existed for years, it has been exacerbated by Berlin sending weapons to Kiev. Hoegl warned it would cost the army around €20 billion to refill its ammo stocks.