Bureaucratic issues undermine Ukraine's effort to expand the capacity of military production, insists Vladyslav Belbas, CEO of Ukrainian Armor LLC. During his speech at the Cipher Brief 2024 defense and economy forum in Kyiv, he urged the government to transition to long-term contracts, as it's the key incentive for manufacturers to invest in ramping up their capacity.
"Any private manufacturer is ready to increase production volumes in case it's awarded a planned long-term order. Then, it won't need investments from the state or sponsors, the manufacturer will be able to make plans, involve and invest, develop products and increase the volumes of weapons and equipment produced at its own expense."
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Against the backdrop of rapidly developing FPV drone manufacture, with Ukraine's government heavily investing in this sphere in 2024, he added:
"In my opinion, FPV drones are like 'new powder' for the war but we shouldn't forget about conventional weapons either, such as artillery. We have to prioritize domestic production, develop it in significant quantities in order to have a balance of capabilities on the frontline, including the artillery [capability]," said Belbas at the forum, as quoted by his company's press service.
Also, the head of Ukrainian Armor revealed a problem he faced when talking to international partners: foreign investors are not willing to take extra risk injecting their money into Ukrainian defense industry because important data about defense facilities is still available in the public domain, and russians could use this information to target industrial facilities.
"Engagement of external partners will be possible only after Ukraine has an understandable and transparent system of work, and the manufacturers' assets are protected. It is unacceptable that on the third year of war that public sources have information about the contractors fulfilling defense orders, their locations, volumes of implementation, etc. On the third year of war, this information should be classified and hidden from the enemy," Belbas insisted.
On the part of Defense Express, the issue with the openly available data of defense contractors has been discussed for a few months now, in particular, NAUDI — the National Association of Ukrainian Defense Industries — in February 2024 submitted an appeal to the Prime Minister of Ukraine, Denys Shyhal, to classify the said information.
Correction: the following photo was updated due to a caption mistake
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