The production capacity of the domestic defense-industrial complex increased from $1 billion in 2022 to $20 billion in 2024, Herman Smetanin, Minister of Strategic Industries, said in an interview with Reuters. Next year, automation will be the main focus of innovation on the battlefield.
The production capacity of the domestic defense-industrial complex increased from $1 billion in 2022 to $20 billion in 2024, Herman Smetanin, Minister of Strategic Industries, said in an interview with Reuters. Next year, automation will be the main focus of innovation on the battlefield.
«The number of infantrymen stationed in the trenches has significantly decreased, and combat control can be carried out online from a remote point, which reduces the risk of personnel casualties,» said Ostap Flyunt, an officer of the 67th OMBr.
The vast majority of the more than 800 companies in Ukraine’s defense manufacturing sector were founded after a full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.
According to the state defense cluster Brave1, there are now more than 160 companies in Ukraine that create unmanned ground vehicles that are used to deliver cargo, evacuate the wounded or transport remote-controlled machine guns.
Flyunt also noted that modern warfare is a confrontation between technologies of detection, jamming and destruction at a distance, the operator only needs to decide on the task of strikes.
«In the near future, this will be the main direction of development, the war of robots,» Herman Smetanin said in an interview with Reuters. «It’s about people’s lives, we have to protect them.»
Ukraine hopes that an innovative defense sector will provide a new foundation for the war-ravaged economy.
According to Smetanin, the country has invested $1.5 billion in modernizing defense production, which has stagnated since Soviet times, although it still relies on Western allies for shells, missiles and air defense equipment.
And while Ukraine has built up military production capacity since the start of the war, the state can only afford to buy half of that, the minister said, leaving additional production capacity unused.
