Private producers of heavy weapons and equipment emerge in Ukraine
7 October 2024 16:46
In 2024, many private manufacturers of heavy weapons and equipment appeared in the defence industry. This was announced during the Defense Tech Valley investment forum by Deputy Minister for Strategic Industries of Ukraine Hanna Hvozdyar, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports citing Ukrinform.
According to her, the traditional defence industry, like defence tech, is also on the move.
“Over the past year, we have seen a lot of private manufacturers of heavy weapons and equipment. For example, in terms of the number of artillery systems produced per month, we have become the first in the world,” said Hvozdyar.
She said that private manufacturers of armoured vehicles have also emerged in Ukraine, and some of them have already managed to increase production to 3 units per month.
“Missile manufacturers have also appeared on the private market, which has never happened before. The missile programme was closed and was handled exclusively by state-owned enterprises. And today there is a private market. I think this is a big step forward,” the Deputy Minister added.
Hanna Hvozdar also said that the role of the state in such projects is to support manufacturers, help with certain specific components, and provide technical documentation that has been stored since Soviet times.
“Or we help businesses establish partnerships with existing state-owned manufacturers who have experience in this area. As a rule, they are happy to cooperate,“ said Hvozdyar.
As a reminder, the DFNC2 International Defence Industry Forum was held in Kyiv on 1 October. More than 750 people from 30 countries attended the forum. The event brought together 168 foreign and 115 Ukrainian defence companies and associations. In total, about 120 B2B meetings were held on the sidelines of the forum.
The event is held to bring together the world’s leading defence companies, Ukrainian defence companies, governments of partner countries, embassies and Ukrainian officials to strengthen the development of Ukraine’s defence industry. The largest delegations were from Denmark, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Italy, and the Czech Republic.
According to the press service of the Ministry of Strategic Industries, the forum was opened by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. During the forum, he met with CEOs and top managers of defence companies from partner countries and awarded representatives of foreign defence companies with state awards for their personal contribution to the development of Ukraine’s defence industry and the creation of high-tech products under martial law.
“Today, almost every visit to our partner countries, almost every negotiation with partners, with world leaders, as well as direct communication with defence companies – all this brings Ukraine more investments in the defence sector, new technologies and, accordingly, production capabilities,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Several important cooperation documents were signed as part of DFNC2.
The first document was signed even before the official start of the forum – during the visit of the Danish delegation of the Ministry of Defence and the Danish Parliament led by the Minister of Defence of Denmark, Trolls Lund Poulsen, on 29 September. This is a letter of intent between the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, the Ministry of Strategic Industries of Ukraine and the Ministry of Defence of Denmark to introduce financial support for defence production in Ukraine.
The forum also saw the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Strategic Industries and the DI Defence and Security Industries Association (Denmark).
In addition, Ukrainian companies signed a number of documents with foreign companies to develop the production of ammunition, electronic warfare equipment, air and sea drones, and the repair of Western weapons.
