Ukraine capable of increasing weapons production by 50%: Shmyhal announces new strategy
Kyiv • UNN
Newly appointed Minister of Defense of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal reminded that President Zelenskyy's public task is to increase the production of domestic weapons by 50%. Shmyhal confirmed that the capacity of Ukrainian manufacturers is growing and announced the launch of Defence City - this is one of the elements that will allow Ukraine to scale the production of its own weapons to the appropriate percentages.
Ukraine is launching a large-scale defense reform. The state plans to produce half of the necessary weapons on its own, creating joint ventures with partners. There are intentions to attract one trillion hryvnias for security and the army.
This is reported by UNN, referring to Denys Shmyhal's interview for BBC News Ukraine.
Details
An important public task from the president is to increase the production of our own weapons to 50% - from interceptor drones to artillery and armored vehicles.
Currently, Ukraine is auditing all international agreements within the framework of the 28 signed security agreements, including commitments reached at meetings in the "Ramstein" format.
A new mechanism for attracting resources from partners is also being formed within the framework of the concept of a 5% contribution to NATO. One of the President's tasks is to bring the share of domestic weapons production to 50%. Today, 40% of purchases are made from Ukrainian manufacturers, and their capacity is growing.
In 2024, about 700 billion hryvnias are provided for the security and defense sector in the budget, and another 300 billion were additionally mobilized. For this purpose, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Strategic Industries are being merged.
The government is launching the Defence City initiative - a new ecosystem for the large-scale development of defense technologies in Ukraine.
In addition, the presidential initiatives "Build with Ukraine" and "Build in Ukraine" will stimulate the creation of joint ventures in the country. Another direction is the creation of factories outside Ukraine in partnership with European companies.
According to the minister, such a model will allow up to 80% of manufactured products to be transferred to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and the rest will be stored in the partner country.
We can say that, for example, 80% of what is produced is transferred to Ukraine, 20% is stored in the warehouses of the country where the enterprise is located. This can be such a win-win agreement.
Recall
It recently became known that Zelensky signed a European integration bill that introduces a number of tools to simplify the work of the public-private partnership mechanism, and introduces the possibility of creating joint defense projects between state and private defense companies.