Ukraine is scaling up the domestic production of weapons, which is the only way to success, involving companies from other countries. The update comes from Oleksii Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine.
"Joint production of weapons with NATO countries is already taking place. Another thing is that we need to increase the production as much as possible, but these are technical processes which are being worked on by relevant state institutions," Danilov said during an interview hosted by the United News telethon.
Read more: Ukraine Needs to Increase Production of FPV Drones by Almost 67% to Produce One Million of Them by 2024
He provided no specifics regarding the range of weapons in question. Worth noting that "weapons jointly produced with NATO" the official could include the already known cases of Ukrainian companies establishing the production of some critical weapon components on the territory of the European Union to protect the facilities from russian missile attacks.
At the same time, multiple factors indicate that the direction of joint production of Western weapons in Ukraine is rapidly branching out.
Some of the officially announced projects include the FrankenSAM with its transfer of U.S. technologies, the entry of Western companies into Ukraine with specific plans for the production of their innovative weapons — first Rheinmetall with Fuchs and Lynx armored vehicles, then Quantum-Systems with its intent to open a service center in Ukraine to localize the Vector UAV production, BAE Systems with a repair hub for British artillery, etc.
With defense industry giants setting up their centers for maintenance and repair of Western equipment in Ukraine the foundation for the upgrading them to full-fledged production facilities is being laid.
Meanwhile Ukraine is quite actively patching up some bottlenecks in its own production of weapons, in particular, concerning the painful issue of ammunition production. Oleksii Danilov announced "very good news in this regard," hinting at the active participation of private companies in this process.
When the interview touched on the topic of production of 1 million FPV drones in 2024, which was announced by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi during the last press conference, the NSDC Secretary noted that this is quite an achievable goal.
As he explained, this would not require any sort of quantum leap or a several times increase in production, just improve the rates from 50 thousand to 83 thousand drones a month.
On this note, Defense Express reminds that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is looking at FPV drones as a potential solution to the deficit of artillery ammunition, by lifting part of the toll on the artillery and delivering more FPV drone strikes on russian invasion forces.
In the end, Ukraine adopting any strategy focused on intensifying its own efforts to produce weapons reflects the shift in policy prompted by uncertainty of prospects of military aid from partners.
Even if the United States does unblock the supplies for Ukraine in January, as Danilov assured, it does not guarantee Ukraine will get any more weapons than earlier. And in the meantime Europe struggles to meet the promised rates of ammunition production, voices raising alarm about underwhelming investments and lack of multi-year commitments.
Read more: Speaking of War in Ukraine, Europe is Still Reluctant to Look Back at WW2
