Ukraine building up arms industry
Whether resurgence fast enough to turn tide still uncertain
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s military had only one Bohdana howitzer in its arsenal when Russia invaded the country two years ago. Yet that single weapon, built in Ukraine in 2018 and able to shoot NATO-caliber rounds, proved so effective in the earliest days of the war that it was trucked to battlefields across the country, from the northeastern city of Kharkiv to the southwestern coast along the Black Sea and points in between.
Now Ukraine’s arms industry is building eight of the self-propelled Bohdana artillery systems each month, and although officials will not say how many they’ve made in all, the increased output signals a potential boom in the country’s weapons production.
The ramp-up comes at a pivotal moment.
Russia’s war machine is already quadrupling weapons production in round-the-clock operations. Ukraine’s forces are losing territory in some key areas, including the strategic eastern town of Avdiivka, which they withdrew from in February. A U.S. aid package is still hung up in Congress. And while European defense firms are gingerly opening operations in Ukraine, major American weapons producers have yet to commit to setting up shop in the middle of a war.
It is widely agreed that Ukraine needs to rebuild its domestic defense industry so that its military will not have to rely for years to come on the West, which has at times hesitated to send sophisticated weapons systems — including air defenses, tanks and longrange missiles. Whether that can be done in time to alter the trajectory of a war remains to be seen.
But Ukraine’s military engineers have already shown surprising skill in jury-rigging older weapons systems with more modern firepower. And over the last year alone, Ukraine’s defense companies have built three times as many armored vehicles as they were making before the war and have quadrupled production of antitank missiles, according to Ukrainian government documents reviewed by The New York Times.
Funding for research and development is forecast to increase eightfold this year — to $1.3 billion from $162 million — according to an analysis of Ukraine’s military budget through 2030 by Janes, a defense intelligence firm. Military procurement jumped to a projected 20-year high of nearly $10 billion in 2023, compared with a prewar figure of about $1 billion a year.
“We say that death to the enemy starts with us,” Alexander Kamyshin, Ukraine’s Strategic Industries minister, said last month.
“It’s about showing that we don’t sit and wait until you come help us,”
Kamyshin said. “It’s about trying to make things ourselves.”
Some weapons are proving harder to produce in Ukraine than others. They include 155 mm artillery shells, which are in dire need on the battlefield but depend on imported raw materials and licensing rights from Western manufacturers or governments.
Kamyshin said domestic production of 155 mm shells was “on the way,” but would not say when.
Once a main supplier of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s defense industry shrank over three decades of budget cuts after the country declared independence in 1991. The government in Kyiv now plans to spend about $6 billion this year on weapons made in Ukraine, including 1 million drones, but, Kamyshin said, “we can produce more than we’ve got funds available.”
The long period of decline may be hard to overcome.
To restart production of the 2S22 Bohdana howitzer, for example, officials had to track down the weapon’s original designers and engineers, some of whom had been assigned to menial military tasks across Ukraine.
By June 2022, Ukrainian forces were using the Bohdana’s 30-mile range to target and destroy Russian air defenses in the successful battle for Snake Island in the Black Sea.
“It was a very big surprise for the Russians,” said Maj. Myroslav Hai, a special operations officer who helped liberate the island. “They couldn’t understand how somebody could use artillery for this distance.”
In Europe, political leaders who worry about eroding American support and business executives who see new market opportunities are promoting military production ventures in Ukraine, even if it may be several years before any of those weapons or materiel reach the battlefield.
German arms giant Rheinmetall and Turkish drone maker Baykar are building manufacturing plants in Ukraine.
France’s defense minister said in March that three French companies that produce drones and land warfare equipment were nearing similar agreements.
Last month, Germany and France announced a joint venture through defense conglomerate KNDS to make parts for tanks and howitzers in Ukraine and, eventually, whole weapons systems.
Experts said Ukraine’s military has positioned air defense systems around some of its most critical weapons factories. It’s likely that foreign-backed plants will largely be built in the country’s west, far from the front lines but also protected by air defenses.
To date, Ukrainian and U.S. officials said, no major American weapons manufacturer has announced plans to start production in Ukraine. However, some senior executives have visited Kyiv in recent weeks to meet with Kamyshin and other officials, and the Biden administration hosted meetings in December to bring together Ukrainian leaders and U.S. military contractors.
Helping Ukraine rebuild its defense industry has become even more vital as Republicans in Congress have blocked $60 billion in military and financial aid to Ukraine.
However, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., recently signaled that he is looking for politically palatable ways to bring the aid package to a vote.
But a web of bureaucracy in Kyiv threatens to slow at least some investors as they seek to push proposals through three ministries: Defense, Digital Transformation and Kamyshin’s Strategic Industries.
“We’re trying to get a sense of how this all fit together, and how they work together,” said William Taylor, a former ambassador to Kyiv who is leading an effort by the U.S. Institute of Peace to help link up American and Ukrainian defense firms.
“American firms have got a lot of opportunities to invest in other places around the world,” Taylor said. “This is one where U.S. national interests are at stake, so it’s why we would take an extra step to help make these connections.”