Ukraine triples its weapons production in a year – The Economist
Ultimately, regardless of the ceasefire, Ukraine must eventually turn into a "steel porcupine" equipped with everything she needs to repel any Russian attack. The Ukrainian military-industrial complex is quite capable of providing the country with most of the missiles, armored vehicles, drones, and artillery shells needed to resist the Russians. After the Soviet era, Ukraine's military industry significantly reduced in size but retained its industrial base. Now, it is accompanied by hundreds of new productions and a dynamic process of innovation provoked by a full-scale war. While in Western Europe, it takes several years from the creation of a new development to its availability to the military, in Ukraine it takes a few months.
Last year, Ukraine produced $10 billion worth of weapons, which is ten times more than in 2022 and three times more than in 2023, the publication writes, citing a report by the Ukrainian Institute for the Future (UIF). This includes more than 800 private and state-owned companies and more than 300,000 employees. This year, production volumes are expected to reach $15 billion – but in total, companies are capable of producing $35 billion worth of weapons. The constraint is simply lack of money, which Kyiv hopes allies will assist with, the publication says.
Ukraine is already covering about half of its arms needs, former Defense Minister Andrii Zahorodniuk. And Russia's strikes do not seem to be affecting this progress. "Some facilities have been hit five times or more, but they survive," Mr Zahorodniuk says.
This year, Ukraine expects to produce 5 million FPV drones that dominate the battlefield, compared with 2 million last year. Also, 30,000 bigger long-range drones, 3,000 cruise missiles, such as the new Long Neptune, and "missile-drones", such as the turbojet-powered Palianytsia. Ukraine is also testing her own ballistic missiles on Russian targets. These are extremely fast and thus harder to intercept. Although Fabian Hoffmann, a missile expert, reckons those numbers for big missiles may be ambitious.
The Economist calls Ukraine's electronic-warfare technology one of the most advanced in the world and definitely better than Russian and European ones. In particular, it refers to the Lima jammer, which scrambles the guidance system of the Russian glide bombs.
The key problem of the Ukrainian defense industry is the lack of air defense systems. The need for them is so great that even imports cannot cope with it. However, in January, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi announced confirmed that Ukraine is developing a system that can shoot down ballistic missiles. Ukraine has also established a joint venture with the French firm Thales, one of the manufacturers of the SAMP-T air-defense system. Some European partners understand that investing in Ukrainian arms production is the fastest and most effective way to maintain our defense capabilities. However, the amount of money allocated so far amounts to hundreds of millions of euros, not billions, as the situation requires, the publication says.