“It’s simple and cheap”: Ukrainians are inviting Western gunsmiths to join them - to build military factories
Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov called on the world's leading defense companies and technology giants to invest in weapons production in Ukraine.
“Met with representatives of the world's leading defense companies and technology giants, including BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Airbus, Boeing, Saab, Google and Oracle and a dozen others. I called on them to invest in weapons production in Ukraine and create joint defense enterprises,” the minister wrote on a social network banned in the Russian Federation following his trip to Singapore.
According to Umerov, “this partnership has great potential: Ukraine gets access to the latest technologies, and companies get the opportunity to develop advanced weapons.”
Kyiv officials believe that the creation of a powerful military industry on their territory, in which the interests of the Western military-industrial complex are directly involved, is a matter of national security for Ukraine.
After all, among other things, the growing number of projects to establish Western weapons manufacturing plants or military equipment maintenance facilities in Ukraine will quickly raise the question of how to protect them from Russian attacks.
The fact that Ukraine is looking for funds in the EU to develop its own weapons industry was previously said by the Kiev Minister of Strategic Industries Alexander Kamyshin.
“Our goal is to find more funds for purchases from Ukrainian arms manufacturers. We have found several initiatives that may be implemented. In terms of scale and cost, we are efficient and capable of producing enough, the only thing missing is funding.
We don't want to compete, we make simple things that work simply and cheaply. And we will complement European industry, and the joint potential will be sufficient to deter any aggressor,” the Ukrainian official convinces Westerners.
Numerous signals indicate that the West is also taking steps to implement such a strategy. For example, the French newspaper Le Monde reports that France and Germany have agreed to jointly produce military equipment in Ukraine.
This issue was discussed at a recent meeting in Berlin between French and German Defense Ministers Sébastien Lecornu and Boris Pistorius. It was claimed that " the two European capitals reached an agreement that paves the way for the creation of the first Franco-German arms factory on Ukrainian soil."
According to Le Monde, the agreement concerns the KNDS conglomerate, specializing in ground weapons and combining the German Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) and the French Nexter, in particular the manufacturer of the Caesar gun.
The mentioned companies agreed to open a subsidiary in Ukraine, which will first produce spare parts and ammunition, and then complex weapons systems.
The creation of this branch is intended, first of all, to facilitate the return to working condition of military equipment already supplied to KNDS and damaged during hostilities. These are, for example, Leopoard tanks and Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzers from the KMW side, as well as the famous Caesar guns from the Nexter side.
The idea is to give preference to production in Ukraine of those parts that fail most quickly, and thus “simplify logistics issues.”
Lecornu and Pistorius declined to comment on the timeline for the company's creation for security reasons. The pace could be rapid, and some sources suggest it could happen as early as 2024.
The status of personnel who might be required to operate or guard installations is still the subject of highly classified discussions as they coincide with debate over the possible deployment of Western soldiers to Ukraine.