Necessity and Ukrainian ingenuity have combined to build a flourishing arms industry, almost from scratch, in just four years. Weapons expert Oleh Katkov, from the Defense Express consulting company, says Ukraine has multiplied its weapons-producing capacity 30-fold since Russia’s full-scale invasion.
How have they done it? “We’re an open, creative society,” Katkov says. “And we are fighting for survival.”
If Ukraine loses this war, he says, then all the territory from Kharkiv, on Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia, to Uzhhorod near the western border with Slovakia “will be turned into Bucha”.
At Bucha, near Kyiv, the Russians murdered at least 458 civilians and went on a campaign of rape, torture and looting for the first month of the full-scale invasion.
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Ukraine now has the capacity to produce seven million military drones a year. Its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, announced on April 28th that his country was about to begin exporting “drone deals” including materiel and training. The needs of the Ukrainian armed forces must be met first and buyers will be vetted for connections with Russia.
Zelenskiy had already concluded drone deals with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, who had wasted multi-million-dollar Patriot missiles to shoot down Iranian Shahed drones worth $50,000 (€42,500) each. Ukrainian interceptor drones do the same job for just a few thousand dollars.
On Monday, five days before Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day parade, a Ukrainian long-range attack drone struck a 54-storey apartment building in Moscow, a few kilometres from the Kremlin, the seat of Russian power. The Russian president’s decision not to show heavy equipment in Saturday’s parade is believed to have been motivated by fear of Ukrainian drones.
Black rain fell on the Russian Black Sea town of Tuapse after long-range Ukrainian drones attacked its petroleum refinery three times last month.
Rising prices for hydrocarbons, alongside US president Donald Trump’s lifting of sanctions on Russia’s main petroleum companies, had provided a windfall for Putin. But long-range Ukrainian drone strikes have incapacitated five of Russia’s leading refineries, achieving in months what international sanctions failed to do in four years.
“Ukraine cannot manufacture an anti-aircraft system, ships or aircraft. But we can make drones, missiles, artillery and armoured vehicles,” Katkov says.
Prof Phillips O’Brien of St Andrews University, Scotland, writes that Ukrainians “are now, arguably, the intellectual leaders in devising machine-based modern war strategies”.
Ukraine is using unmanned platforms on land, air and sea – drones – to compensate for a severe manpower shortage. Sea drones have sunk a third of Russia’s Black Sea navy. Unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) – robots – are used to evacuate wounded soldiers from the front line and deliver food and ammunition. “These are basically single use units,” Katkov says. “Their average lifespan is four missions. But the alternative is to waste human lives.”
Defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov says Ukraine will next year perform 100 per cent of frontline logistics with UGVs.
Joint ventures between European and Ukrainian companies “are the big trend right now”, Katkov says. Companies in Norway, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Finland have established joint projects to produce drones or other weapons with Ukrainian know-how.
Britain’s Build With Ukraine project has produced thousands of Octopus-100 interceptor drones with Ukrainian help in the UK. Some of the drones are shipped to Ukraine as military aid. The Ukrainian company Praktika was contracted last November to produce armoured vehicles with Spanish companies in Spain.
“We don’t need their help in drone defence,” Trump sniffed when Ukraine offered to help those targeted by Iranian Shahed drones. “We know more about drones than anybody.” Ukrainian interceptor drones and instructors had already been deployed to a US airbase in Jordan, Zelenskiy said.
Armin Papperger, the chief executive of the German defence giant Rheinmetall, dismissed Ukraine’s drone-making abilities as “Ukrainian housewives” making drones with 3D printers in their kitchens.
But Katkov asks: “What’s he going to do if a swarm of Shaheds are fired at his factory in Germany?”
The Ukrainian city of Dnipro once hosted the most important missile production site in the former Soviet Union. Then, Soviet president Nikita Khrushchev boasted that Dnipro’s Yuzhmash factory churned out rockets “like sausages”. Mock-ups of missiles still stand in front of the former factory, which was sabotaged by the Russians after Ukrainian independence.
The Soviets built T-34 tanks for use against Nazi Germany in Kharkiv. After the second World War, Kharkiv built the T-64s which Russia has used in every war since.
But little is left of Ukraine’s Soviet-era arms industry. The state-owned Antonov factory, which built transport aircraft, now produces long range Lyutyi (fierce or furious) attack drones which Ukraine has used against oil refineries, factories and military airfields.
FP-1 long-range attack drones, built by the Ukrainian company Fire Point, are believed to have been used in last month’s attacks on Russia’s Tuapse oil refinery.
Ukraine began using Fire Point’s FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile against targets in Russia last October.
Katkov says Ukraine is able to produce weapons so cheaply because it is not subject to the rules and regulations which restrict the arms industry elsewhere. Ukrainian arms manufacturers often use civilian components, something not possible in Europe.
For Russia, too, cost is a factor. “On a typical night, Russia fires about 10 ballistic and 10 cruise missiles and 500 Shaheds against Ukraine,” Katkov says. “Ballistic and cruise missiles carry 450-500 kilos of explosives. The Shahed has a 50-90 kilo payload. Which system delivers more damage? If they hit their targets, the Shahed, because 50 times 500 equals 25 tonnes in one attack. The cheaper system wins.”
Both countries are experimenting with artificial intelligence (AI). Russia’s new S-71 Monochrome missile is described as a bridge between Shahed-type drones and conventional cruise missiles. The Monochrome is AI-programmed to strike autonomously.
“We are at the stage where drones can attack a target with no human intervention,” Katsov says. “You can programme it to attack all cars, or all green cars. But Russians don’t care about drone error. They don’t install safeguard mechanisms, as Ukraine does. It’s called ‘human in loop’ – a human must confirm a target if there is a doubt. The Russians don’t even install this function.”
Russia has reportedly quadrupled production of Iskander-M ballistic missiles. Unlike a cruise missile, which flies like a plane, a ballistic missile goes into the atmosphere in a high arc and re-enters at hypersonic speed. “Intercepting a ballistic missile is like shooting down a bullet with a bullet,” Katkov says.
The US-made PAC-3, fired from a Patriot launcher, is the only missile which can intercept the Iskander. Ukraine is desperately trying to replenish its stocks at a time when the US has warned allies that deliveries will be delayed because of the war with Iran.
Russia’s most frightening weapon may be the Oreshnik Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), which carries six multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) – each of which carries six submunitions. The Oreshnik was designed to carry nuclear warheads. Two Oreshnik strikes in Ukraine, on Dnipro in November 2024 and on Lviv in last January, used dummy warheads.
Putin said the strike on Dnipro was a live-fire test. The Oreshnik has such a long range that those deployed to Belarus could only be used to attack Europe, not Ukraine. Diplomats in Kyiv believe Putin intended the Oreshnik strikes as a warning to Europe to stay out of the war.
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