Can Ukraine Win the War with Its Own Weapons?

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In a discussion of the future of the war in Ukraine in Foreign Policy magazine, Fraz-Stefan Gady, a consulting senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, discusses a much-overlooked part of Ukraine’s ability to defend itself—the country’s own weapons production. Rather than relying on foreign aid, Gady explains, Ukraine can make many weapons itself. He writes:

To reduce its reliance on Western weapons deliveries, Ukraine is increasingly focusing on producing more of its own. The results have been evident, for example, in the Black Sea—where sea drones developed and produced in Ukraine have decimated the Russian fleet—and deep inside Russia itself, where there has been a sharp rise in reported explosions at defense-related facilities and infrastructure, such as refineries and fuel depots. While Kyiv rarely comments on these attacks, they are widely believed to come from Ukrainian-made drones.

These Ukrainian successes are important, but turning the tide in the war will require a decisive advantage in firepower on the battlefield, principally artillery munition and strike drones. That, in turn, will require a significant increase in military production not just in Europe and the United States but also in Ukraine itself. The challenge for Kyiv is substantial: Prior to Russia’s 2022 invasion, Ukrainian defense companies specialized in making Soviet-era equipment and struggled to meet the Ukrainian military’s demands for advanced weaponry. That’s why Ukraine’s 2024 defense budget still allocates the majority of procurement funds—about $6.8 billion—to purchases of foreign equipment.

As Ukraine scrambles to retool and expand its arms industry under wartime conditions, it’s getting help from Western governments, defense companies, and private initiatives. Germany’s Rheinmetall, for example, aims to begin producing armored vehicles in Ukraine this year. Kyiv’s Alliance of Defense Industries has recruited more than 60 companies, including dozens of foreign firms, to facilitate investment in the Ukrainian defense sector and localize production. Baykar, the Turkish manufacturer of the Bayraktar drone, announced this month that it had started construction of a drone factory in Ukraine.

There is substantial Western interest in Ukraine’s defense sector—in particular, homegrown drone technology. But Russian attacks still deter many U.S. and European defense contractors from investing in the country, since one Russian missile or drone could wipe out a multimillion-dollar investment. The Ukrainians have been trying to get around this risk by spreading production to smaller, dispersed facilities that are harder for Russian intelligence to detect and collectively wipe out.

Ukraine is also turning into a laboratory for new ways to develop and manufacture weapons. Without much government direction, private sector and citizen-run initiatives have created a decentralized innovation ecosystem for collaboration on electronic warfare systems, cybersecurity, strike drones, naval drones, loitering munitions, battle management technology, and more. Kyiv has set up coordination platforms that have generated hundreds of project applications from these initiatives, in turn producing dozens of defense contracts. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has also reformed and expedited its certification process, with new weapons directly tested on the battlefield. The challenge is not how to innovate but how to scale up production, given skilled labor shortages, supply chain bottlenecks, corruption, and Russian attacks.

One possible way forward is to expand Ukraine’s military industrial base on NATO territory using joint ventures with Western companies underwritten by a dedicated investment fund. That would not only give Ukraine a steady supply of NATO-standard weapons immune to political whims in the West but also send a strong signal to Moscow that it may not have time—and Western fickleness—on its side after all.

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