Allies to buy $675 million worth of Ukrainian weapons for Ukraine

Ukraine has attracted $675 million from partner countries for the production of artillery, armored vehicles, drones, and other Ukrainian-made weapons.

Ekonomichna Pravda reported on this.

Due to the lack of budgetary funds, the Ukrainian government can only contract one-third of the weapons from the state-owned defense industry, which already has a capacity of $20 billion.

To solve this problem, the Ministry of Strategic Industries launched the ZBROYARI initiative, which offers Western partners to purchase Ukrainian weapons for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

“In a few months of ‘bombarding’ partners with proposals to contract Ukrainian plants, Ukraine has agreed to allocate $675 million from various countries. There will be even more,” the publication reported. Denmark, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, the United States, and the European Union have already joined the initiative.

ZBROYARI initiative

Active work on the “ZBROYARI: Manufacturing Freedom” project was launched at the end of last year. It immediately received a global goal of accumulating $10 billion in arms contracting from Ukrainian manufacturers by the end of the year.

At the end of last year, the Danish government was presented with proposals to finance the production of Ukrainian products for the first time. The agreements resulted in a $170 million Danish order for Ukrainian arms manufacturers, which includes 18 Bohdana self-propelled howitzers.

Canada became the second participant in the initiative. The Ministry of Strategic Industries told Ekonomichna Pravda that it all started with a visit to Ukraine by Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair. At that time, the country allocated $95 million to purchase 800 Canadian SkyRanger R70 drones as part of the Drone Coalition.

“We met him (Bill Blair), thanked him for the drones, but said we wanted to show him something. We made a comparison chart with the cost and characteristics of the SkyRanger R70 and its Ukrainian counterparts, which are several times cheaper. They offered to buy a test batch of Ukrainian drones,” the source at the Ministry of Strategic Industries shared.

Canada was interested in the proposal, and its government agreed to allocate $2.1 million for Ukrainian drones. The Ministry of Strategic Industries notes that agreements with Canada and other countries are not final, and Ukraine will do everything to expand funding programs.

Later, Ukrainian officials managed to involve representatives of the Netherlands in the initiative, successfully presenting the capabilities of defense companies to them. As a result, the country agreed to allocate €17.5 million for the purchase of Ukrainian maritime drones and allocated €20 million for FPV drones, some of which can be used by domestic enterprises.

The real challenge for Ukraine was to get Germany or the UK involved. The main problem was competition with local defense giants already heavily involved in arms supplies.

However, Ukraine has found a way out of the situation. This year, Ukroboronprom created a joint venture with the German concern Rheinmetall, which will produce the latest Lynx infantry fighting vehicles in Ukraine. The Ministry of Defense does not have the money to purchase them, but according to Kamyshin, they will be produced at German expense.

It was possible to agree on money for weapons with the British government. So far, it is about financing the repair of L119 howitzers at Ukrainian facilities. The agreement was facilitated by the British company BAE Systems, which is the developer of these artillery systems.

However, the primary source of funding at this stage of the initiative’s development should be the European Union, which will allocate €400 million for the project. According to the Ministry of Strategic Industries Head, this money should be allocated from the €1.4 billion in profits from frozen Russian assets.

According to Ekonomichna Pravda, they also plan to raise funds from the United States. They will try to get it by contracting orders at the facilities of American companies in Ukraine. A potential source of funds could be the US Defense Enterprise Fund worth $2 billion, part of which could be used for orders for the Ukrainian defense industry.